DISQUS

tysgodhi · 2 years ago

Hey Al,

What's controversial about the Buddha being a man, not a god? I've heard lots of lamas say the same thing, and thought it was pretty much taken for granted. Is there a different view on E-sangha?

Al Billings · 2 years ago

One gathers that this is the case. :-) Namdrol on E-sangha, who you will see shutting down the thread with Jundo at the end, is Malcolm Smith. I'm *sure* that you remember Lama Malcolm. He seems to be pretty strict about the whole matter.

tysgodhi · 2 years ago

Too bad! He seemed to take concepts and orthodoxy way more seriously than I'd expect from a Dzogchen practitioner. Although, people who currently practice a lot don't usually end up moderating e-forums.

Al Billings · 2 years ago

Namdrol and the other moderators and administrators of E-sangha ban viewpoints on the Dharma that conflict (or conflict in their collective and individual opinions) with proper teachings.

For example, when speaking about the views of Jundo's teacher, Malcolm says on E-sangha:

"Believing that one's consciousness ceases at death is exactly annihilationism. It is a pernicious view and one forbidden here. "

So, there are views that are forbidden on E-sangha. It is hardly an open forum where people can really discuss things.

Nsight · 1 year ago

...which puts Namdrol precisely in the shoes of one Sati the Fisherman's Son, who claimed that the Buddha taught that consciousness transmigrates through existences in the Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta. Of course, the Buddha castigated him and reiterated the proper Dharma teaching that forms of consciousness only arise dependent upon contact between sense organs/systems and objects that arise within the scope of their abilities. The eye sees a form, and eye-consciousness arises. The mental processes sense an idea or mental activity, and mind-consciousness arises. The object-forms leave the "field of view", and that consciousness that sensed their presence disappears. This is the arising and cessation of "the world" as the Buddha defined it in the Loka Sutta in the Ninandavagga and elsewhere. The Buddha was explicit in MN38 that these six forms of consciousness, arising as each of the six sense bases interacts with their objects, are the only forms of consciousness.

Another aspect of Namdrol's statement is the underlying assumption that if one does not actively believe in his position, that one must actively oppose it. He fails to see the false duality of his position, probably intentionally, in order to submit a straw man argument against anyone who finds speculative views concerning any "life after death" to be irrelevant to the Buddha's core teachings, which are designed to eliminate suffering. He and the rest of the Dharma Nazis at eSangha do not recognize any sort of middle position in which one does not consider theories of reincarnation or tit-for-tat notions of karma to be relevant to the elimination of ignorance, greed and loathing. Anything short of outright belief or silence on the part of "non-believers" is considered "anti-reincarnatoin" and therefore "annihilationism" and treated with progressively more vicious attacks on the boards and warnings, suspensions, and banishments behind the wings. The sort of straw-man attack you see above is one of the main weapons the eSangha mods use in their ongoing war on those they view as heretics or "non-believers", as they have no real recourse to the suttas.

The biggest problem is that they claim to be a "Buddhist" forum, and many people who find themselves drawn to the teachings of the Buddha wind up there because they are at the top of the Google hit lists and come away with a bad taste in their mouth and a skewed impression of what Buddhism is about because they get beat up in the forums by the mods and their legions of toadying brown-nosers that report any activity or discussion that doesn't follow their party line. They claim to provide a Buddhist forum, but they are not a Buddhist forum at all, as they censor and attempt to silence legitimate teachings of the Buddha -- particularly those which challenge speculative views, especially their own -- and in this way they do not represent Buddhism as a whole, rather their own narrow views and beliefs of Buddhism. One can call oneself a Buddhist in their forum only as long as one toes the party line of their narrow speculative views. They are more akin to a totalitarian cult that demands blind obedience from its members. They are to Buddhism what Fred Phelps is to Christians.

Yes, it's not an open forum. The reason it's not an open forum is so that they can run roughshod on those who do not fall in their lines. In doing so, it becomes a lie to call it a "Buddhist" forum.

Vayama · 1 year ago

Well spoken.

Vayama · 1 year ago

Try again. Your opinion about the Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta was well explained.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

I am Professor Karma Gedun MD. FRCP.
I was a " Senior Contributor " to E Sangha. A year or so ago, tired of constant threads about "Jesus as a Bodhisattva," "Buddhism is the same as Hinduism " etc I posted a thread saying that I was going to convert to Islam. Most people got this immediately. I repeated the same ( possibly unfunny ) joke a few weeks ago in reponse to a crudely rascist anti-Arab post on E sangha. This time I was threatened with being banned unless I apologised for the " hurt anger and disruption" I had caused.I refused and told them to grow up. I was then suspended from posting. E Sangha is a circus run by control freaks, chief among them is indeed " Loppon Namdrol" who invisbles every post that disagrees in a coherent way with his views. In effect E Sangha , particularly the Tibetan Forum has become a vehicle for a hard core group of followers of a particular teacher based in Italy who sends " empowerments " by satellite. I kid you not. Bit by bit all other views of Vajrayana Buddhism are being closed down leaving a cultic monoculture.
Karma Gedun.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

One Mans Meat.
A brief look at Thought Control as practised on E Sangha.
The tone and tenor of what goes on on E Sangha can largely be traced back to the influence of Namdrol. For sometime and increasingly the Forum has become his own personal fiefdom where he struts and preens and gives his imperial thumbs up or down to members , subjects and threads. A tactic he commonly deploys is to create a double bind that makes the members wrong whatever they do.
A recent example was the great meat debate.
For years until recently Namdrols view, and Namdrols views are always absolute, was that meat eating was manditory. Woe betide any Vajrayana student who enquired however tenatively whether they might be excused meat at Tsog Pujas ( these are particular ceremonies common in Tibetan Buddhism, involving eating and drinking.) Namdrol would roar that such behaviour amounting to Samaya breaking. This is the most serious thing that a Vajra student can be accused of. It means breaking certain oaths between teacher and student. Many, possibly most Vajrayana students are firmly convinced that Samaya breaking leads post-mortum to particularly nasty hell states. So by refusing meat they risked hell. Opponents of this view were ridiculed and humiliated and frequently their posts would be "invisibled."
Suddenly, overnight, this position was reversed. Namdrol had become a vegetarian, we were informed. Whats more that was the position he had ALWAYS held. Anyone who was not a vegetarian was not a Buddhist, and was the same as a murderer or war criminal. To cries of " you have changed your view! " he replied with threats , "invisiblings " and the whole panoply of the deranged emporer. When it was pointed out that the teacher whose view he currently espoused was not a vegetarian he rumbled and blew and sent up clouds of smoke in the manner of The Great Oz.
Whereupon the vast majority of the Tibetan forum nodded sagely and agreed that indeed that HAD been his position all along...The members of TB forum fall into three main groups. a small group of level headed and sincere practitioners. Perhaps 10%.They stay out of controversy. When the wind of Namdrol starts to signal itself, when eddies and breezes start to set the trees swaying they withdraw for a while.Then there is a group of the confused and weak, about 80%, and the remaining 10% who are Namdrols thugs-in -training. These tactics of course will be well known to anyone who has studied cultic behaviour, always keep the dependent on the wrong foot, change the rules frequently so the vulnerable are always wrong. Maintain control thereby. This tactic is deployed frequently by Namdrol and his cohorts on E Sangha.

KG.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

So, whats to be done ?
We have a situation where the largest and most widely read Buddhist website by far has been hi-jacked by cultists. As will be quickly discovered by any who test my statement, this small group maintains power by any means necessary, They allow no free discussion.
I will put my cards on the table here, I am a traditional literal rebirth believer. It seems clear to me that the Buddha taught literal rebirth. However that is not the issue. There is no Buddhist practice which depends on belief in a particular doctrine. All it needs is a "taste and see" mentality. Many people on encountering Buddhadharma can maintain and develop a sincere and fruitful practice without being in any way preoccupied with the literal truth or otherwise of rebirth.
This should be self evident, in fact it probably IS self evident to the mods and admin of E Sangha. However this is not a doctrinal issue. This is about control.
This is about those with, perhaps, a sense of personal inadequacy who have become a dictatorial elite in their own tinpot cyber world, within that world they have absolute power to a degree possibly unique in the western world. Any and all dissent in silenced.
So to return to my question ,what to do ?
Possible responses ;1) Teyes.
E Sangha is fortunate in having a patron who is both rich and remarkably hands-off. Teyes as he is known started the Forum as a pious act and leaves it to itself. Does he know what is being done in his name ?
2) A few good men. There are , even within the moderating team, people who are uncomfortable to say the least with Namdrols style. Amomng the membership, and particularly outside of the Tibetan Forum those similarly uncomfortable almost certainly form a large majority. Posts constantly refer to the posters fear of suspension or banning.
I carefully left a trail of crumbs to this site before being banned from E sangha. I dont know what the usual hit rate is for this site, but judging from the numbers of hits since I posted here first, I would guess that a number of people followed the trail. A proportion of them will know the truth of what I am saying and agree. To those people I would say, Imagine E Sangha without Namdrol and his cohorts . Imagine a Tibetan Forum where all schools are equal, dzogchen and non dzogchen alike. Where no one implies second class citizenship to non-dzogchen students.
On the wider forum , imagine a place where practice rather than beleif is what counts. Where humour and tolerence abound, where mods have the lightest of hands in matters of doctrine, but instead are focussed on promoting positive relationships between schools and traditions based on commonalities.
Non-banned members of E Sangha, its in your hands. It really doesnt have to be like that. Why not reclaim your website for the good of all ?
Karma Gedun.
( Peter ).

Founding member · 1 year ago

imagine a Tibetan Forum where all schools are equal
imagine a place where practice rather than belief is what counts
where humour and tolerence abound,
where the mods have the lightest of hands in matters of doctrine,
but instead are focussed on promoting positive relationships between schools and traditions based on commonalities -

sounds like Esangha in 2003.

Al Billings · 1 year ago

That's what I wanted to start with Open Buddha (http://www.openbuddha.com) but, so far, without the critical mass of people actually using it, the site hasn't taken off. This is the core problem with starting a new site and building community. You need enough people to get it going but how do you get enough people?

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

Al, I will check out openbuddha when I have a minute. Its very commendable to undertake such a venture.

"Founder member "
I can well believe that E Sangha was very different in 2003. I joined in 2005 and even then the style was far more collegiate, there was more dialogue and actual debate, although the seeds of Namdrolism were already evident.
Within in a year or so all debate ( particularly in the Tibetan Buddhist Forum ) was closed down. Posters receive a one line answer yes or no from Namdrol or one of his clones. If the poster persists Namdrol will reply with a one liner about how his answer must be correct because he knows far more about the subject than the poster or the posters teacher, or Nagarjuna or Atisha or Dogen etc etc. If the poster continues it becomes personal, Namdrol, who will have come in to the discussion commando style by now ( even if it is a clone who has been replying,) feet first and through the window, will tell the poster that they are stupid , ignorant and that their view demonstrates the fact. Further posts which fail to display total submission to the Great Oz will be " invisibled " swiftly. Any who think that this is an exaggeration, and who have access to E Sangha, can trawl through Namdrols back posts where they will see this pattern repeated scores of times. At this point Namdrol's Mini-Me's will emerge from the woodwork to form a queue in order to administer their own slap to the transgressor rather like that scene in " Airplane " where the passengers queue to slap the passenger with hysterics. It is a blood sport.
I find it extraordinary that it has been tolerated for so long.
An alternative to E Sangha is to be supported, two good websites, a new one and a reformed E Sangha cleansed of the influence of the namdrols would be even better. As I have said above, it isd the hands of the members. I know for a fact that many of them agree.
K.G.

Oh brother · 1 year ago

Wow, KG, I think you need to look into Chogyal Namkhai Norbu's teachings and students at a bit more personal level before you write them off as a kooky cult. First of all, Norbu is widely recognized as a Dzogchen master... not a cult leader. Secondly, the idea may seem strange to you that he would give transmission via webcast, but if you understood the nature of transmission a little bit better, it would perhaps not seem so strange. What I find strange, personally, are people who believe a vase needs to be touched to their head... over and over and over again as they go around collecting empowerments which apparently do them not much good.

Namdrol's meat position is not as flip-floppery as you try to make it seem, either. He said that he is now vegetarian but he would never refuse samaya substances, which means he will still eat meat at Gana Puja, etc. I certainly see nothing wrong with Namdrol's most recent decision; he's been trying to do the right thing all along and has come to the conclusion that for him this is the right course of action. He's not oblivious to the fact that masters eat meat, nor did he say he was disregarding the importance of meat in the tradition he follows. Like many things in Ati teachings, there are some apparent contradictions which actually make sense viewed from the proper perspective: (1) our intention is to benefit all beings, so eating meat obviously seems to negate that intention. However, meat is not slaughtered specifically for the rituals, which (2) form an important part of going beyond dualism vision. Not only Dzogchen, but even Sakyamuni said that if one believes he has understood emptiness but disregards cause and effect, he has made a grave error and will degenerate swiftly into amorality. In the experience of nonduality, nobody is going to start killing beings and eating them. In the experience of duality, we realize beings as temporary phenomena in a state of suffering. All things self-liberate, regardless of clinging and aversion, eventually, but knowing this we do not make light of the cries of the suffering beings nor do we add to their misery. By acting in this manner, we show that we have an understanding of karma and of emptiness.

As for the idea of reincarnation being just a silly old superstition along with ghosts in the stomach, etc.,well the person who made that remark is obsessed with labels and shows a lack of understanding of emptiness. A person of this mindset is in no position to judge the beliefs of "superstitious Buddhists" of the past. Words are empty of inherent reality and Occam's Razor simply defines the limits of our perception, which is very poor indeed. Especially that of any monkey on this speck of dust in the middle of fathomless space who believes his perception is good enough to make some firm assertions about reality. Both Max Planck and Erwin Shrodinger disregarded nihilism/scientific materialism and they were the forefathers of quantum physics and modern biology. Shrodinger went so far as to write a paper challenging the entire scientific community as to what it deemed worthy of calling "life" and it was his ideas which lead to the discovery of DNA, the basic structure or concept of which he had essentially mapped out theoretically, inspiring the top biologists of the day. He explained that to limit "life" to the idea of something that is "carbon-based" and something we puny humans would recognize as "life" was an infinitely limiting proposition and this can hardly be argued even today. Planck, on the other hand, said that we would never be able to figure out reality as we oruselves, which we don't understand, are part of that very reality. By what merit does any boring-minded status quo "skeptic" claim otherwise? Certainly not the level of merit of these two brilliant and honored scientific minds.

Al Billings · 1 year ago

Personally, I have no issues with Namkhai Norbu or his methods. If one thinks that one has to be within three feet of a teacher to receive an empowerment, I think that you are being a bit limited. That being said, after I attended one of Norbu's more distant empowerments, I made a point of attending a retreat with him in person.

Let's stay away from bashing teachers like Namkhai Norbu, please. I have the utmost respect for him and others who have dedicated their lives to the Dharma.

As an aside, when people quote the Buddha as having said this and that, I begin to wonder as the sources for what the Buddha actually said on certain things is often contradictory. This isn't surprising when we realize that what we have was written down hundreds of years after his death and may not even be the entire body of what he taught (as many Mahayana practitioners believe).

For myself, I remain open to the concept of reincarnation but I'm not sure that I really "believe" it per se. It depends on how one wants to define things (including "belief").

Oh brother · 1 year ago

Incidentally, I ran into some problems myself with E-sangha at first, but that's because I kept trying to compare it to Western Hermeticism / Qaballah all the time. After a while there... and after receiving transmission, by the way, from Norbu, everything changed for me in a big way. I realized that I just didn't care about Qaballah all that much anymore and stopped paying my B.O.T.A. dues. There is a very good reason for this (and I was making great progress in B.O.T.A., Tarot, Qaballah and Thelema), but it would be very hard to explain. My first introduction to Dzogchen was not E-Sangha, by the way, but Judy Kennedy's book, "Beyond The Rainbow" or something... she is a member of B.O.T.A. as well as a Dzogchen practitioner and I can't remember exactly what she said, but something in that massive brick of a book inspired me to really look into it. Norbu just happened to be the most convenient "in" for me and I'm very glad I became part of the Dzogchen Community. The difference between "instantaneous" and "gradual" path couldn't be more obvious than when you're sitting there doing it. And, once you've caught a glimpse, you have a much better idea what all the other forms of mysticism are about... there's a reason Buddhist teachers tend to ignore the siddhis: the same reason why they cultivate an attitude of renunciation. Maybe you can call 72 goetic demons to do your bidding... maybe you can master elementals and do all kinds of neat tricks Franz Bardon would be proud of... so what? It's on the same level as learning to play the guitar real well; not that important unless you want to just stay stuck in the same old places.

Oh brother · 1 year ago

BTW, Cool Al, nice to meet you! That was a really nice response. I expected to be banned or slammed, actually for me straightforward tone. It's nice to meet someone online like yourself who is obviously open-minded and seems pretty kind-hearted, too.

Good luck with everything. If there is another Buddhist forum around, I'll certainly be up for a few posts here and there. I stopped talking much about it online when I realized I was probably not helping people, but confusing them... when I should really just be practicing. ;)

Al Billings · 1 year ago

I don't know about kind hearted as I have a pretty reactionary temper but I try not to penalize people for being straight up with one another unless someone is purposefully trying to get someone's goat.

Al Billings · 1 year ago

Oh, I did make Open Buddha (openbuddha.com) but it isn't being used much. I'm wondering if I should convert it from the Drupal-based community site to a straight up web forum.

Oh brother · 1 year ago

BTW, I think I was paraphrasing the Dhammapada there as it's one of the few traditional Buddhist books I've read fairly recently. It is true that it's hard to know for sure just what the historical Buddha did or did not say, but one thing's for sure: the history of the manuscripts holds up a lot better than, say, the Bible. Sometimes when I study Mahayana Sutras or beliefs I wonder to myself how or why Theravadins disagree so adamantly sometimes. It seems to me that a lot of it has to do with really being hung up on labels, again. In any case, I have not read anything that I can remember which was attributed to the Buddha which I did not think made sense in relation to the rest of his teachings and so I generally take it on faith, I suppose, that the Buddha really taught such things.

Oh brother · 1 year ago

:) I made a FreeBuddha proboard a while ago myself... Nobody showed up. It's quite amazing that E-sangha has such a gigantic membership. It's cool enough... I just avoid things that are obviously going to become "issues" these days. This obviously wouldn't be that great if I was new to Buddhism, though. I came to view the moderator action in a rather favorable light, actually. It's kind of nice that they are preserving their lineages the way they have been preserved for so long without watering them down or allowing them to be compared to other teachings willy nilly. There are a couple spots for that: beatnik buddhism and the comparative religion area... you just have to make sure not to cross the line and say things like,'all these different traditions are different ways of trying to point to the same damn thing!' because they don't like that too much. ;) Nowadays, I don't believe that so much myself, so I'm glad they censored my big mouth! Hahaha... Cheers!

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

I think I may have skewed my presentation of my own view by mentioning certain processes of "empowerment ". In so doing I took my eye off the main point I was trying to make.
In my view the Tibetan forum on E sangha had become a monoculture. If it wasnt Dzogchen as presented by one particular teacher, the mods in general and Namdrol in particular, were lukewarm . The other subforums were characterised by the sound of of distant traffic and the occasional tumbleweed blowing across the landscape. I know several people who simply gave up trying to get a discussion going about anything else, other than one interpretation of Dzogchen. Leave aside the issue of whose interpretation...only one view was reinforced. You might notice my use of the past tense, because there has been a development in the last week. ( even Banned People can access the Forum via friends. )
Apparantly the Dzogchen Forum has grown so bad tempered and belligerent that CNNR has asked that his teachings are not discussed on E sangha at all. I gather that he was being swamped by e mail requests to be the referee in the constant wrangling and disputes that characterise that subforum. During my time as a member of E sangha I personally seldom ventured into the Dzogchen Forum. It was a bit like trying to hold a rational conversation with Jehovahs Witnesses. But very bad tempered Jehovahs Witnesses...
Anyway Namdrol reacted to this request by CNNR ( who is a very influential Dzogchen teacher but far from the only such ) in characteristic style. For those who may not know he, without preamble or discussion, simply closed the Dzogchen Forum !
It is for others to decide if CNNR's request was reasonable. We however now have the reverse side of an unhealthy situation. Previously there was little interest by some of the mods in anything but Dzogchen, ( I can think of three mods in particular of whom that statement is untrue.)
Now we have the entire subforum closed down. Closed even to those Dzogchen students who are not students of CNNR, and whose behaviour is not oafish......
The word " stalinism " springs to mind.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

Hi " Oh Brother ",
I think that your remark expressing your surprise at not being " banned or slammed " for simply stating your view makes the point about the prevailing situation on E sangha far more eloquently than I could...

oh brother · 1 year ago

Actually, that remark was expressed in reference to numerous other blog comment areas I've stumbled upon, not E-sangha. So, you're projecting.

Al Billings · 1 year ago

Please take this elsewhere before it turns into a flamewar.

oh brother · 1 year ago

I don't flame, but I see why you'd be concerned. Just setting the record straight.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

I think we are begining to see hairline cracks appearing on the plinth of The Great Oz, so far as fine as hairs, but deepening and spreading. I think The Great Oz is going to become Ozymandius... Not this week or this year perhaps but eventually. Banning an entire sub-forum as a response to the request of one teacher ( who in fairness did not ask that the whole subforum be banned ) has set in train a series of events, the outcome of which for E Sangha are likely to be very unpredictable in detail. But fairly clear in general...
Imagine what the reponse would have been BTW if before being banned Jundo Cohen ( or any other well known Buddhist teacher ) had requested that his teachings should not be discussed on E Sangha.
Namdrol would, I believe have been the first to dismiss such a suggestion.

Clearly any website that bans or slams sincere, non slanderous, views has a major problem within its functioning.
When that website's whole raison d'etre is the propogation of views and methods leading to Awakening , but excercises sanctions against sincerely held, non slanderous views. then it is acting completely against its own reason for being. The dynamic of that will eventually be unsupportable.

oh brother where art thou · 1 year ago

I don't know if there's a major problem correcting sincere, nonslanderous views if they're wrong. I was just reading Trungpa's "Myth of Freedom" recently and he does a good job explaining the Buddhist path in simple easy-to-understand westernized terminology. One of the important points he makes is regarding the sword of Manjushri and/or the wrathful side of Buddhism. A lot of people get a watered-down version of Buddhism and think it is about turning the other cheek like Christianity, but in reality it is a compassionate act to knock someone over who is not on the path than to let them remain deluded. It is uncompassionate not to correct wrong views, especially if they are the views of a very loud voice who is only bringing error upon himself and all those who hear.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

I was a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He certainly corrected wrong views. But by discussion and reason and confronting with fierce compassion. He did not throw people out of the room and ban them . Which is what is happening on E Sangha. CTR did not simply react from the ego to maintain control.

oh brother where art thou · 1 year ago

The other difference is the sheer amount of people both involved actively and perhaps affected. CTR obviously could only work one-on-one with so many people at a time and he didn't read their every passing remark on a 5-10 post-a-day basis shot into the homes of the entire world. If someone in CTR's group was teaching incorrect crap and claiming it came from CTR, he wouldn't be happy about it, I'm sure.

I don't know exactly what incidents you're talking about on E-Sangha, but they clearly have rules in place along with a warning system and anyone who gets banned has probably acted out several times and talking a lot about stuff they don't know as much as they think they know. It happens. For example, I've read a book by a Zen monk explaining what Dzogchen is... and yet, how would he know? Only by comparing words and saying, "Oh, I know what this means," which is not the best way. Since I have actually learned a lot more about Dzogchen now through dozens of books and many hours of practices, I can say with some certainty that if Thich Nhat Hahn began talking about Dzogchen as he did in "Zen Keys" and didn't stop, he would most likely be banned, too.

Some people want to cross-compare everything like they're at a wine-tasting and that's fine; I have books from every tradition and I like to compare things, too. There have been a few occasions when certain lamas or monks will have dialogues with those of other faiths for the same purpose. But, you wouldn't expect to go into ANY temple or school and say, "Oh yeah, that's just like Sufism" or "I know what that means it's such-and-such" without backing off your assertions when corrected.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

Everything you say has some merit, but doesnt detract at all from the issue at hand , which is that E Sangha has a number of moderators who are addicted to control.( One in particular ) Who close down debate, who do not correct views but simply "invisible" them. Who constantly apply double standards, such as responding to a teachers request to have no debate about his teaching, which is unprecedented, and unlikely to be extended to other teachers. The whole point of this thread as I understand it is to highlight the fact that debate and the shaping of views is not allowed on E Sangha. Oh brother you can defend the moderating policy on E sangha ad infinitum but it will not alter my view and the view of many many others ( I know personally of some 6 or 7 experienced Buddhist practitioners who have stopped posting on E sangha because of the draconian nature of the moderation, particularly on the Tibetan forum ) that E Sangha which is a potential source of much good, has in fact become a source of great concern due to its totalitarian , and controlling tone.

oh brother where art thou · 1 year ago

I would like to know specifics and everything, but I've relatively lost touch since I got fairly tired of E-sangha not simply because of the moderators but because of the general atmosphere over there. Every single time I related a thought it needed to be qualified by a few dozen ass-covering statements.

And, by the way, not wanting to point fingers, I will have to admit that it is mostly (if not entirely) the Tibetan practitioners there who've sent me packing. They are real sticklers and pedants, but I believe they are trying to help and clarify. It would be sad to think it's just egotistical chest-pounding, but that's possible, too.

Unfortunately, my interest IS Tibetan Buddhism and so I don't have much to talk about over there anymore. I prefer Yahoogroups, etc. these days. Otherwise, I pose a question and expect a few (hopefully unintentional) insulting responses mixed in with the helpful ones. Other than that, I don't go there to tell everyone what's what, so I really don't run into much problem. Plus, I'm hardly ever there anymore. ;)

Shikpo · 1 year ago

The implication here OH Brother is that it is those " who tell everybody whats whats ". Who run into problems on E Sangha. The reality is as any regular poster can tell you, that the most innocent query from an inexperienced poster runs the risk of being "invisibled " and slapped on the wrist if it is Namdrol who answers. We all remember him responding to a Christian who was reaching out by replying " we dont need no stinking Jesus " This was not isolated or unusual. In fact I would say that the response in question was utterly typical. As someone else has said, " You are an idiot and your teacher is wrong " is what passes as dialogue from Namdrol.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

I find the passive attitude among the other mods to Namdrol's excesses suprising. Particular those on the Tibetan Forum. Before being banned from E Sangha,a badge that I now wear with pride ( smiley )I exchanged a number of personal messages with others including mods, which made it quite clear that they were aware that there was an issue. Only once do I remember a mod standing up to Namdrol in any sustained way. That was over the aforementioned issue of Namdrol's vegetarianism. Let me be clear, If anyone moves to a position of vegetarianism and gives public reasons which contradict earlier expressed views that is fine. However what we have here is a complete volte- face, then a denial that it WAS a volte-face. One of the best of the TB forum mods confronted Namdrol with this. Namdrol huffed and puffed and did his Great Oz impersonation. Unusually however, the mod stuck to his guns. Normally everyone gives up knowing that the threat of excommunication from the Papal Court is a real possibility. Then that mod went silent for a period of weeks. I notice with a twinge of sadness but no surprise that he is once more kissing the Papal ring. I guess he knew that he had a choice between continuing to serve at E Sangha and submitting, or going out in a blaze of glory. He chose the former. During this time he received no public support from the other mods, all of whom kowtow to Namdrol. Even those who PM about him behind his back.
Incidentally the unofficial view about Namdrol's conversion to King Veggie was as a result of pressure from a new girl friend. Whether true or not I dont know. But that was the rumour among several of the members including mods. ( Its ok fellahs, I'll keep mum. )

oh brother where art thou · 1 year ago

It would be unwise to PM behind Namdrol's back since I know for a fact that he and others can view PMs of anyone if they choose.

My memory's a little foggy, but I do remember "disproving" some obnoxious moderator censorship about a year ago by simply using the name of a respected teacher and quoting his EXACT WORDS regarding "God," etc.

Basically, this just shut them up. Now that I'm thinking about it, I guess I'll have to go back and rethink those arguments... y'see, my big issue to begin with, coming from a Western Mystery Tradition background was with the concept of "God" and "what could God be?" At times, I've had varying understanding regarding this and finally got over it to believe as I currently do, a more thorough understanding of 'dependent orignation.' In the beginning I was confused about Kuntuzangpo, Thich Nhat Hahn's "Interbeing" and Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche's ease of use with the term "God." So, back then, I was like, "it doesn't matter what you call IT, blah blah blah..." but, over time, I came to see how/why it DOES matter how you refer to it because it is not a single entity or the somehow personified conglomeration of all life; it's just the natural state/source of being at any "point" in space. It does not all "sink into" an Overmind, as Wentz once published in his translation of "Tibetan Book of The Dead."

And, so, actually, for that, I am grateful to the moderators for clarifying a misunderstanding that arose from certain teachers willingness to use more familiar western terms to appeal to western students. It may be comforting at first, but it would be incorrect to keep on going believing Kuntuzangpo and "God" are interchangeable terms... even IF Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche didn't mind using the G-word.

Lojong It · 1 year ago

Try
Lojonging it -The Throwing Star Weapon
(A Mahayana Attitude-Training)
(Theg-pa chen-po'i blo-sbyong mtshon-cha 'khor-lo)
by Dharmarakshita

Atisha said of The Throwing Star Weapon:

When, having spread my intelligence out
And studied all around,
Without being partisan toward any system,
Although I saw fathomless wonders (in all of them),
This teaching (in particular) has brought benefit
in these degenerate times.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

It is very noticable that with the dissolution of the Dzogchen Forum, at the request of a prominent Dzogchen teacher, much of the steam has gone out of the Tibetan Buddhist Forum on E sangha. Both in terms of traffic and in terms of intensity of expression. Which begs the question. Did the previous levels of engagement actually indicate discussion among those of positive regard, or was it a focus of displacement activity ?
It seems that if not engaged in verbal warfare and mutual animosity, the Tibetan Forum regulars have much less to say.

starlight · 1 year ago

imho, it had nothing to do with emails to Norbu...and everything to do with opinions being challenged of big fat egos.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

I suspect that you are right starlight, that ( E mails to NNR ) was the official reason given though. Which really doesnt hold water does it? Even if people had been bothering NNR, and even if he had asked for his teachings not to discussed on E sangha, E Sangha could have said that this was an unreasonable request, I cannot imagine anyother teacher in any other tradition being shown such largesse. The reason that NNR was so reponded to is obvious from the personal detail pages of the Tib Forum mods. Must of them are his students. Nothing wrong with that, except it appears to have skewed the tenor and judgement of the Forum as a whole. A certain lack of checks and balances.
And anyway, why close down the entire Dzogchen sub-forum ?
As you say big fat egos. One in particular. Namdrol is proof positive that you can know all ABOUT something,( and his knowledge is extensive ) and yet know nothing OF it. I am reminded of Oscar Wilde's ," someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing ".

starlight · 1 year ago

A true Buddha (which btw, is not trapped by Buddhist or any other teachings or traditions and is within us all), and by extension, a true practictioner of Dzogchen, accepts, nor rejects anything. Action, if any is called for, is simultaneously in each instant of pristine awareness...if one cannot rest in Rigpa, then one must maintain awareness of one's actions and their consequences.

Having said that, ego's actions are also reflections of awareness, for whatever reason we may think, all is for the benefit of all...ignorance is wisdom. Ego, in it's many illusory forms, is an agent of awareness...a puppet.

Who knows, maybe this new forum will take off. I for one miss being able to share what I am reading and experiencing. What is mindblowing to me, is that the whole reason for the secrecy behind the Dzogchen teachings, and the reason for them being disquised and mixed into Buddhist teachings and traditions (besides the obvious ones of preservation), were political and social...they have been preserved through Tibetan Buddhism, but now, the only reason for them being protected as such, that I can see, is monetary gain and arrogance...which, must also surrender to Rigpa...lol.

It is a matter of mistaking the teachings for the message, and once again, attaching to them. I was able to see much wisdom in that thread, and realized that once again, we are prone to attachment to the Dzogchen teachings, and can miss the meaning...

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

The main problem with E Sangha as it has become, is that it in general terms, and in particuar the Tibetan Forum has become an extension of Namdrol's ego. A kind of reactionary emanation in pixel form. All the more insidious and dangerous because Namdrol appears genuinely unaware that he is amplifying and projecting his self sense across cyberspace.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

The real danger inherent in Dzogchen practice is not some kind of unspecified " madness ". It is that the ego becomes more subtle and is identified with the cosmos. The self is unboundaried not because it has been transcended, but because it has become vast. The resulting state of the "I" becoming the Universe is then mistaken for Rigpa. This catastrophic inverted dzogchen was the norm on the E Sangha dzogchen forum. Closing down the Dzogchen forum has merely dispersed that poison through the E Sangha Forum as a whole.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

There is mention over the last day or so on E Sangha of the inherent " arrogance " of some western Dzogchen students. It is proof to me of the truth of somthing one of my teachers said a number of times, that for some western students Dzogchen would prove catastrophic. E Sangha demonstrates the real possibility of this.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

It might be worth looking at a few of the salient points of Narcissitic Personality Disorder.

1) The subject has a grandiose sense of their own importance
2) Has fantasies of unlimited power.
3) Believes that she/he is special.
4)requires excessive admiration and is hostile to any perceived as witholding same.
5) Lacks warmth and empathy , sees those qualities as indicating weakness.
6) Believes others are envious of him/her.
7) Frequently shows arrogant haughty and dismissive behaviours.
Adapted from DSM.

Of course it is not possible to make a diagnosis by Internet. Interesting though I think.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

So then, What do we suppose would be the result if someone with some degree of NPD,( and it is a spectrum, few people have all the symptoms fully ) took over the running of a Buddhist Centre ? Or indeed what if they took over a Buddhist Website ? What kind of behaviour could then be predicted based on the above listed characteristics ?

Chris (Silent Bob) · 1 year ago

Peter--I for one fell for the scam about you converting to Islam, since Karma Dechen backed your game to the full. I also thought your absence was voluntary and had NO idea that you'd been disappeared by the uber-moderator. I still hold my nose and visit esangha now and again, though I very much miss your sane voice. With you and KD both gone it's a much less interesting neighborhood. If you wish to contact me, I am battisATfrontiernetDOTnet. I hope to hear from you, here or backchannel...

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

Hi Chris, nice to hear from you, you are one of the real voices of sanity on E. S., and one who makes it clear discretely that they are not fooled or intimidated by the Der Fuhrer.
KD is I believe, still around from time to time, but is waiting for the big change which she thinks is inevitable, when oppression levels reach a particular tipping point. I am not so confident, but heres hoping.


_/\_

Peter.

Chris (Silent Bob) · 1 year ago

Peter, Old Luv--Could you simply email me? It would work better for reasons I'll explain privately.

Chris (Silent Bob) · 1 year ago

Peter--My recent post to you on this board was monitored by the Esangha Security Service and I was contacted by Namdrol, who suggested strongly that I unsubscribe, so I have. It strikes me as ludicrous, given the tame content of my post here and the fact that I've never felt any real dissatisfaction with N. or his moderating style, but there really hasn't been much on esangha lately that makes it worth hanging around for.

I see it as one more source of distraction that I've managed to pull the plug on, so it's really no big deal, though N's heavyhanded response did strike me as odd and intemperate.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

Dear me, the situation on E Sangha grows more and more silly. How long will this be tolerated ?

Shikpo · 1 year ago

So now the behaviour of this deeply immature and paranoid man Namdrol is spilling out beyond his little tinpot kingdom of E Sangha and into other areas of cyberspace. He is truly a disgrace to the Buddhadharma and to Dzogchen. I feel that someone should alert CNNR to what is being done in his name. Wake up E Sangha mods and administrators !

Chris (Silent Bob) · 1 year ago

Ok, I have to say on Namdrol's behalf that there has never been the slightest friction between us until my post of the 15th at which he took such umbrage. In it, I was mainly registering my surprise at discovering Peter (KG) on this board when I believed he'd taken leave of his senses and become a Hadjji.

I don't wish to cast more asparagus at Namdrol, for moderating that circus at esangha would tax the patience of a saint. He's been an excellent and reliable resource, even if he often comes across as dismissive and has some biases that I don't happen to share.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

Well sir , I can only hope that your latest post suceeds in ingratiating yourself back into Namdrols favour. It seems to me that the " oddness and intemperance " of which you speak is in fact quite normal for Namdrol.
I also note that that you are not in fact unregistered from E Sangha. There is a saying in England about "running with the fox and hunting with the hounds ".........

Chris (Silent Bob) · 1 year ago

I have in fact unregistered, if that is the same as being logged out. I don't the slightest reason to try to ingratiate myself with Namdrol, to participate further in esangha, nor for that matter in this forum. I am old and cranky and from what I've seen so far none of the parties in this little dispute have exactly covered themselves in glory.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

Only one of the parties is however the " Global Administrator " of the the largest Buddhist Website. Only one bans people willynilly. Only one appears to have a messianic complex. Only one is to use your words, the " uber moderator ".
Either people are " voices of sanity " or they "have not covered themselves in glory, " surely they cant both be true statements ?

Al Billings · 1 year ago

As the owner of this forum, let's try to keep it a little less personal between people here, at least, if you please.

My negative experiences on E-sangha have been with Malcolm (Namdrol) as well. As far as I've been told by at least one moderator, he was the one that argued for and enforced my own banning from the site for doing things like questioning moderator actions or starting Open Buddha (and mentioning it on E-sangha).

While Namkhai Norbu has been one of Malcolm's main teachers, I was under the impression that Malcolm didn't associate with the Dzogchen Community anymore and didn't attend retreats with Norbu. His presentation seems to be from a Sakya position much of the time.

Namdrol · 1 year ago

Dear Al:

I hope you approve this post.

This extended personal assault on my character is completely wrong and inappropriate, and I am quite surprised that you countenance it.

The amount of rampant projection and baseless gossip here has managed to exceed even my tolerance level.

Al: whichever moderator told you that is mistaken. You were banned because you persistently tried to circumvent our policies especially when Monshin Paul Naamon, the US Tendai Rep showed without doubt that Prosser was lying about his ordination status. You backed the wrong horse, in the worse way. But you were not banned for starting Open Buddha; we don't and never have banned people for deciding to start new forums. We don't encourage them to advertise them on our forum, however. And you have left out the fact I have defended you on one occasion that you know of, and you should understand that in point of fact, you would have been banned long ago from E-Sangha without my running interference for you repeatedly.

Peter: I was the only person that was opposed to banning you, until you went over the edge here and also at e-Sangha. One moderator did you a disservice--- there was never any hint of a desire to ban you for "...converting to Islam". There was a discussion about "If a Vajrayana practitioner gives up Buddhism completely, how do we deal with this from a samaya point of view."

And as you can see here, other board members i.e. Silent Bob, have also thought you had left Buddhism entirely. So you cannot merely pretend this is something that was obviously perceived to be a joke.

Further, this whole chain of events was started by you, actually: a user complained to me in January that you were harassing them over the question of rebirth, and so we mods started a discussion about you in which the issue of your conversion to Islam was raised. We told the user, actually, that you were not harassing them, since one PM does not and cannot constitute harassment. Of course, what is interesting is that you neglect to mention the scores of complaints you have made about other users, including requests to have so and so banned. So your pretense to democracy and open forums is wan posturing, really.

Dzogchen Community:
As far as Dzogchen Community goes, I am actually at Tsegyalgar three days a week at least; when you log into the Mirror Online, you are using code that I wrote in a solution that I designed. I am a fully paid up, participating member of Dzogchen Community. And yes, I am a practicing Sakyapa, and mostly present things from that point of view, and have a two formal degrees from that school.

People really need to examine their projective tendencies. You are not discussing facts. You are indulging in fantasies and speculations.

E-sangha has all kinds of moderators. form lenient to strict. In fact I do the least moderating of all of any of the moderators and tend to be the most lenient. Here, however, it would seem that I am responsible for all of your woes. Well, I will tell, you are all projecting and indulging in fantasies. Over at E-Sangha, the mods are rather astonished at how badly you folks have it wrong. If anything, they think I am too easy.

Now, I have had my say in this shark pool, you can return to your feeding frenzy of character assassination.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

I apologise for my part in personalising the discussion. I do feel however that something very wrong is being perpetrated on E Sangha, my own concern has been growing from a slight worry to a full-scale indignation at what Namdrol is doing on E sangha. He is a pompous bully.

Al Billings · 1 year ago

Malcolm, I allow people to vent, within reason, here. My posts on E-sangha seem to have been getting a lot of traffic over the last six months so I can only assume that people are frustrated and unable to vent anywhere else. When they find them, they express their frustration here.

Since E-sangha does not allow any dissent on the site nor any questioning of moderator decisions in public, there really is no place for people to go.

As to whether I am wrong or not, I guess it is he said, she said. You are far from the only E-sangha moderator or official that I've had contact with and it was pretty clear after the last go-round that the main reason that I was banned from the site was because you, personally, decided I needed to be banned.

I've met Jion Prosser but I am not a student of his so I hardly "backed the wrong horse." The fact of the matter is that you're walking into Tendai group politics where the Japanese organization has policies that change over time on the status of people in the United States or what they are doing here. While the Betsuin is now the official representative here, that has hardly been the case over most of the last 20 years while there have been Tendai priests here. Some of those priests took disciples and some, in Prosser's case, even went to Japan and went through recognized ordination and training there. Whether one's work is organizationally recognized or valid has little to do with whether it is spiritually valid as part of the Buddhist tradition and its lineages. There are factions and politics in any organization. Being a Vajrayana practitioner and teacher, I'd expect that you understand that as much as most. There are lots and lots of politics within the Tibetan community.

E-sangha has decided to toe a specific line to do with orthodoxy in a very rigid fashion (hence the requirement for images showing robes and details of certification for any monk or teacher, etc.) that many do not necessarily agree with. By its own rules, most recognized American teachers of Zen, for example, wouldn't be allowed to say on E-sangha that they are ordained Zen priests because they don't follow your rules.

I find the statements about you, personally, to not be the greatest thing going on here but I cannot say that I entirely disagree with them. I have found you to be pompous, arrogant, dismissive, and, seemingly, awfully ego ridden for a teacher of the Dharma. Since I am full of faults as well and not a perfect example of proper behavior, I generally just leave that aside. We're all human but you are hardly the innocent soul just doing things for the good of the Dharma and lacking in any self interest or self promotion on E-sangha and elsewhere. That doesn't make you a bad person and I wouldn't be able to judge if you were. It just makes you human, like the rest of us. Unfortunately, as the most powerful moderator and administrator on E-sangha, your whims or foibles have an impact on many many people, as can be seen here. The foibles of the rest of us do not.

As to the E-sangha "community," it is not a healthy place for Dharma and definitely not a healthy place for open communication. It survives by inertia and the mass of its existing members, both of which draw in more new members more quickly than existing ones leave (or are thrown off). A lot of people quietly toe the line there as they see people suddenly disappear (along with their threads or conversations) when they rock the boat. I can only guess that my blog is one of the few places that ex-E-sangha members here about people speaking about what is really going on there.

While I don't want to turn Open Buddha (openbuddha.com) into purely a place to bash E-sangha, I would actually, personally, prefer if conversations about E-sangha moved there rather than just being this longer and longer thread on my blog. That being said, I expect that word of mouth and search engines will keep sending people here.

Malcolm, I think it would do you well to actually listen to the core content of what people are complaining about here rather than simply saying "The mods think I go too easy on people" and dismiss it. There is obviously, to anyone but you, something wrong with E-sangha.

Namdrol · 1 year ago

"He is a pompous bully."

Grow up.

Al Billings · 1 year ago

Are you going to simply trade insults now, Malcolm, or are you going to actually engage with people?

You state that you did a three year retreat and have been given permission to teach the Dharma by your teacher. I would hope that you would exemplify the best of the Sakya lineage (or that of Namkhai Norbu) when representing yourself online.

In other words, whether others are small or not, you should not, as a teacher, stoop to that level or am I wrong?

Shikpo · 1 year ago

So then, Namdrol do you really think that all the concern expressed about your style is merely the result of projection? I have been practising Vajrayana Buddhism since you were in short trousers, and I have never repeat never come across such dismissive arrogance as you habitually show on E Sangha. I know nothing of the facts of the matter re. Karma Gedun or Silent Bob or Al, I do know that your dialogue with E Sangha members is frequently characterised by verbal thuggery, intolerence and down right nastiness. I also know that to be a widespread view. I think you should step down and let E Sangha breathe.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

I will bow out of the discussion now. I have spoken my mind. I know for a fact that I have represented the views of many many people. Including many on E Sangha.
Thank you Al for allowing your space to be usurped in this way. It is truly appreciated.

Namdrol · 1 year ago

Al:

"I’ve met Jion Prosser but I am not a student of his so I hardly “backed the wrong horse.”

He misrepresented his credentials. In this respect, I deferred to Eijo's expertise-- he lives in Japan, and is conversant with what goes on in the Tendai school. Also, Monshin knows the whole scene over there and here. Prosser is not entitled to be called "Ajari". He misrepresented himself. He has received only the minimum training needed to perform minor rituals in people's homes. But you don't have to believe me. You can investigate things yourself.

"“The mods think I go too easy on people” and dismiss it. There is obviously, to anyone but you, something wrong with E-sangha."

Al: I really hope your community grows as fast as E-Sangha. I hope you have to deal with the crazies, the nihilists, and the nay sayers, the spooks, games players, and so on. You will learn a thing or too, I suspect, about being a moderator of a large, diverse religious site with thousands of users with diverse views.

It is completely incorrect to lay whatever complaints people have about E-Sangha at my feet. On line, I persistently see people blaming me for the actions of other moderators which are made without ever consulting me. I rarely personally intervene.

As for Zen priests: all ordained Zen priests can say they are "priests", what they cannot say is that they are "monks"-- because, we, the whole moderating team, have decided that the definition of monk shall be "bhikshu/novice" and quite frankly, Japanese clergy do not qualify as that. We allow them to display their images and so on and advertise as clergy. We require that clergy, whether lay or not, clearly list their credentials. This decision was reached by the consensus of all moderators, including a Japanese priest.

" I can only guess that my blog is one of the few places that ex-E-sangha members here about people speaking about what is really going on there."

No, they can complain in many places besides here. they can and do complain on usenet, web sangha, new buddhist, AOL, and all kinds of places.

Usually people are pissed off at us because they don't like the fact that we don't have room for Buddhism Lite (tm). But it is pretty clear too that they are not talking about what is really going on at e-Sangha, which is quick clear from the massive amounts of unfounded speculation and projection you permit Peter to engage in. For example, it is a fact that Norbu Rinpoche does not like his students to talk about Dzogchen very much. So, we did not shut down all conversation about Dzogchen, we simply farmed the relevant threads back into the Bon and Nyingma forums where the students of Nyingma and Bon Dzogchen teachers can talk about whatever they like. We are still parceling those threads out. We decided that a separate Dzogchen forum was too polarizing and that was not good for the Tibetan Buddhism forum, that and people emailing Norbu Rinpoche to complain is just not a good thing.

The fact is that I have several times tried to leave the position of Admin, and ironically, once Peter himself PMd me thanking me for returning to the post of Admin. I have much better things to do with my time than E-Sangha, actually. However, at this point the moderating staff prefers that I stay on board.

What I think is pretty damn silly is that you all focus all of your resentment on E-Sangha, through me, when actually, for the most part, most people who run into problems at E-Sangha, do so with other mods., and not me.

"I have found you to be pompous, arrogant, dismissive, and, seemingly, awfully ego ridden for a teacher of the Dharma. "

I can't take responsibility for your perceptions of me. You own them, they are yours, and they are not mine. Some people like me, some people hate me, most are indifferent.

What is interesting here is that there is mostly just hot air and projection. The complaints are tired, we have heard them a hundred times. We cannot make everyone happy.

And sooner or later people (apart from those driven by obsessive compulsive disorders, and the net kooks) will find better things to do with their time than complain about me and E-Sangha.

Shikpo:

" I have been practising Vajrayana Buddhism since you were in short trousers..."

Then you should know better than to participate in such blatant character assassinations, and that goes for Peter too. But I am glad your egotism is sufficiently healthy so you can make statements like the one you made here and be completely oblivious to the irony of your engaging in one-upsmanship.

A far as stepping down, the last time I stepped down, Peter wanted me to come back on. Funny how things change in samsara. Well, I expect it.

Say whatever you like, Al, this is exactly the kind of thread that we lock down and prevent on E-Sangha-- no-one has ever been permitted subjected to such a lengthy and unmoderated character attack at our site, not Roach, Gyatso, or anyone.

You have to think very carefully what kind of place you want your forum to be. If this is the kind of thread that will characterize it, no one will come. Or if they do, they will mostly be kooks.

Even Jundo does not permit his users to mar his forum with excessive criticisms of others, including E-Sangha, even though he is truly furious at us at the moment because he was recently suspended again for violating our TOS. His ban was rescinded quite some time ago, you know. And his video attached to this page also is really way out in left field. He has a lot of common sense. You would do well to follow his example and not allow your forum to become a place where people are basically just venting impotent frustration.

N

N

Namdrol · 1 year ago

"In other words, whether others are small or not, you should not, as a teacher, stoop to that level or am I wrong?"

Telling people to "grow up" is not trading insults, nor stooping to a level, it is insisting that people behave like adults rather than small children in a playground.

Frankly, by itself, the name-calling in this thread by Peter, Shikpo and starlight embarrasses me for them. I find it incredible that adults, supposedly functional people with jobs, especially Buddhists, feel the need to indulge in such a vendetta, to engage in such afflicted speech. Whatever valid points there may be, whatever valid criticisms of E-Sangha there may be, are totally invalidated when people engage in such a childish orgy of personal invective.

In short, what you people are playing at is not Dharma, it's just politics.

Yuck.

Al Billings · 1 year ago

Malcolm, you mostly sound upset that people have attacked you by name. I can understand that. You aren't really helping the situation here by trolling. You were better off ignoring it if you think it is all lies and mischaracterization.

As for Zen priests: all ordained Zen priests can say they are “priests”, what they cannot say is that they are “monks”– because, we, the whole moderating team, have decided that the definition of monk shall be “bhikshu/novice” and quite frankly, Japanese clergy do not qualify as that. We allow them to display their images and so on and advertise as clergy. We require that clergy, whether lay or not, clearly list their credentials. This decision was reached by the consensus of all moderators, including a Japanese priest.

But you only recognize credentials recognized by the incorporated religious bodies in Japan. I wasn't making a comment about whether Zen priests are monks or not. I was making one about the fact that you wouldn't allow most American Zen priests to call themselves such because their organizations generally broke with the Japanese ones decades go. So, almost any Zen priest in America would be barred from showing themselves on E-sangha as a Zen priest because they aren't recorded with, say, Soto-shu in Japan. This is the same problem, after all, that you've had with some of the Tendai groups or priests.

As to large communities, I've moderated large communities with hundreds, not thousands, of users on and off over the last 20 years of my time online. Sometimes I've done badly and sometimes I've done well. The ones that went well had, as a hallmark, openness and transparency. The fact that no one knows how the moderators on E-sangha become moderators, what the rules are for their behavior, or what is appropriate for them is a problem. The fact that no one can ever publicly question a moderator decision or publicly state an opinion against a moderator or they will be banned (and I've seen it happen) is a problem. You've created a closed, self-selecting junta in which no decision can ever be discussed or challenged in public. It is good to be king, one guesses.

If you have tried to step down before and been called back, I would suggest doing so again. You are, personally, a lightning rod for much of the criticism of E-sangha with the behavior that you exhibit but seem to be oblivious too.

As to forums. This is a blog, not a forum. I've posted here and people are commenting because E-sangha allows them no ability to comment there and they are frustrated. On the actual forum I run, Open Buddha, there are only a few of us. When personal attacks have happened, I've openly asked people to stop and they have. The posts get left up, as well, along with my requests and responses by them. This is done in the open, something E-sangha could try.

Al Billings · 1 year ago

Telling people to “grow up” is not trading insults, nor stooping to a level, it is insisting that people behave like adults rather than small children in a playground.

I would agree but I also allow that people need to vent sometimes and they often need to feel like someone is actually listening to them or shares their feelings. That has happened here, for better or worse. You're just pouring gasoline on a smouldering fire by attacking them personally back or sternly correcting them when no one here sees you having any particular moral authority based on our experiences with you.

In short, what you people are playing at is not Dharma, it’s just politics.

And that is E-sangha in a nutshell, really. It's a chance for a select group to play like the self-selected censors for what the Dharma is and to brook no dissent. You guys remind me of the religious police in Saudi Arabia or the clerics in Iran more than Buddhist teachers.

Open up E-sangha, allow people to dissent a bit without being thrown off, allow them to question moderator decisions or to discuss them in public, and make the process of how moderators get selected and how they can be recalled open to the members and you might win people back. Is there a reason why you don't let users of the site select moderators from their own community? It smacks of arrogant elitism (along with the banning and deletion of dissent).

Namdrol · 1 year ago

Al:

"I was making one about the fact that you wouldn’t allow most American Zen priests to call themselves such because their organizations generally broke with the Japanese ones decades go."

No, this is not so. We do not require that from Rinzai and Soto priests because their American lines of transmission are well established and they have an independent body that is in charge of standards for training and ordination.


"Is there a reason why you don’t let users of the site select moderators from their own community?"


We do.

Moderators are selected in one of two ways: one, because they are suggested to the position by other users; two, prospective candidates are vetted by founding members and the other mods.

Originally, the mods were selected by the founding members and Teyes. It has always been an invited system from the beginning. And yes, it is an oligarchy.

E-Sangha, and its mod policies,were formed out of our experience of the totally unmoderated boards at the old Trike site. It was so hellish, Tricycle shut the boards one day without warning.

"... I also allow that people need to vent sometimes and they often need to feel like someone is actually listening to them or shares their feelings. That has happened here, for better or worse."

Peter was one of the most frequent reporters of posts on E-Sangha. He was listened too ad nauseaum. He was banned because he overreacted to a moderator, who incorrectly told him that we were discussing banning him _because_ he had converted to Islam-- we never had such a discussion.

The truth is that we were discussing him because he had been accused of harassment by another user. So in that case, rather than communicating with me directly, he decided to go on a public warpath. That's ok-- in ten years no one will care, in fifty we'll all be dead.

"And that is E-sangha in a nutshell, really. It’s a chance for a select group to play like the self-selected censors for what the Dharma is and to brook no dissent. You guys remind me of the religious police in Saudi Arabia or the clerics in Iran more than Buddhist teachers."

We are not going to permit long arguments about whether the Buddha taught rebirth literally-- he clearly did. Most of the people bitching about censorship on e-Sangha are bitching about this single issue. This also means that the Buddhism Lite (tm) "tradition" will necessarily get short shrift at E-Sangha.

Several Dzogchen teachers have indicated through their students that we not discuss them or their teachings, so we don't. It is not simply Norbu Rinpoche.

The Theravadins are actually the most restrictive bunch on E-Sangha, but we also have a neo-Theravadin section for the Thanisarro, etc., strands.

As far as dissent goes, all people can take up their issues with mods or admins.

As far as you being a moderator-- you have never moderated a large _religious_site. Yes, I know people get religious about Windows, Linux, Mozilla, IE, etc., but it not the same.

The mods and admins are selected by the fifty or so folks who make up the founding members and moderating staff, on Teyes approval. Ultimately, he is the owner of the site, and all serious complaints need to routed to him. Thus far, in five years, he has never once communicated with me about any complaint any user may have brought against the moderating staff. This can mean only two things-- he does not care (which is not the case), or we are functioning in a way he supports and condones.

Ultimately, if someone really wants to complain, they should complain to him.

Namdrol · 1 year ago

" You are, personally, a lightning rod for much of the criticism of E-sangha with the behavior that you exhibit but seem to be oblivious too."

This is plain ridiculous, Al. I don't behave in any particular way at all other than tell people what I think. Some people don't like that.

As I said, other mods moderate-- I just write posts, for the most part.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

I wasnt going to comment further but..." he was banned because he overeacted to a moderator who incorrectly told him that we we were discussing banning him " Am I the only one who finds this hilarious in a kind of Dario Fo way ? He was banned for reacting to the fact that he was told BY A MODERATOR, WRONGLY, that he was going to be banned ! You couldnt make this stuff up! Its straight out of Catch 22 ! Surely if anyone was going to be banned in this little scenario ( and no-one of course should have been ) it should have been the moderator that wrongly told him that he was going to be banned ! For creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This kind of farce is inevitable when people see their role as controlling rather than facilitating. I would not like to see a website dominated by the emotionally challenged, but that is not what we are talking about. Damn it its pointless really isnt it. I will shut up.

Namdrol · 1 year ago

"Surely if anyone was going to be banned in this little scenario ( and no-one of course should have been ) it should have been the moderator that wrongly told him that he was going to be banned !"

Peter may have been misled, he is still responsible for his speech and his actions. The fact that he chose to go to war is his choice. He is still at war, with someone who never had any quarrel with him and never created one i.e. me. As I said, I defended him up to the point where he decided he had to make a grand stand. In fact, when I was trying to sort out whether he really had converted to Islam, which by now we know is not a conception confined to the moderators, he did not bother to answer my emails. So, the fact is that he shut down any chance of effective communication through refusing to answer our inquiries and then going ballistic.

And as I have pointed out, the only reason Peter came to our attention is because another user complained about him.

So while some people may think our role should be one of facilitators, actually, we are forced into a policing role as well because the nature of human interactions are such that people inevitably wind up having conflicts. Our approach to conflict management on E-Sangha is to forbid certain conflicts as counterproductive to the integrity of the board. This is not something I declared by fiat, contrary to opinion of some, but is rather a function of long experience on internet Buddhist bulletin boards by many of the moderating staff and is an ongoing project.

So it would be nice to live in a Buddhist utopia where everyone exercises perfect speech, and everyone posts with thoughts of loving kindness and compassion (you know, the thoughts of loving kindness and compassion exemplified by all of the invective and character assassination here) but the reality of bulletin boards is that people bring their afflicted selves with them (all of us do) and that is what we have to work with.

Al wants to make everything politicized, as far as I can tell, by framing everything in terms of permitting dissent and so on, but I am sorry to say Al, your ideals won't function on a board the scale of ours and you know it to be so.

Anyway, I don't see much use in continuing to discuss things here, as far as I can tell, Peter, etc., are all entrenched in their point of view, E-Sangha is not really committed to working with people who cannot adhere to our basic guidelines, for example, the one that says that one ought not announce grandly one's intent to leave, and then expect to be welcomed back (That, BTW, AL, is what you were actually banned for, not for announcing Open Buddha).

N

Al Billings · 1 year ago

Of course, banning a user from a large forum because they announced their intent to leave the forum makes perfect and rational sense. That isn't extreme at all?

Do you really believe that, Malcolm? That simply announcing you are leaving a forum on the forum or asking "What happened to the long thread that was here yesterday?" is grounds for banning a user from a site? Really? You don't see how weird and irrational that is?

This is along with only allowing clergy from groups that you're willing to recognize to say that they are clergy (on pain of banning) or any actual discussion of basic Buddhist doctrines and whether they are as literal as some fundamentalists (such as yourself) really believe. Effectively, the moderators and administrators of E-sangha have set themselves up as the final authority on what is or is not Buddhism and which Buddhist groups or organizations are really Buddhist and which are not. That's an awful lot of assumed authority for a bunch of Buddhists running a web forum.

Tell me, Malcolm, do you really believe that Mount Meru is the physical center of the world around which continents are arranged or is that an interesting bit of mythology and story telling from previous ages that we can now move past? I've seen you espouse some rather literal interpretations of mythology before and threaten people with banning who decided to discuss these things in a direction you didn't agree with personally. The fact that you can ban anyone who disagrees with you on your own say-so surely doesn't affect how people interact with you on E-sangha, right?

Anyone who disagrees with your approach or that of your fellows by doing something like saying, "Why, yes, I took vows with so-and-so in this lineage" and then saying that they are a monk will be banned if they don't avoid talking about it if E-sangha moderators don't recognize the group. If they post a picture of themselves wearing their robes, they'll be banned. If they speak from their position, they'll be banned. If they, like certain Zen priests, question a literal interpretation of Reincarnation or other doctrines, they'll be banned. So, E-sangha is really a web forum for "Beliefs that Malcolm and other moderators approve of coming from lineages or organizations that they recognize" and no one else. No open discussion, no open debate. If you don't like it and say anything in public on E-sangha, you'll be banned (there's a theme here...). This is akin to the Chinese internet firewall where specific content is not only not allowed but becomes invisible even though it is really out there still.

Namdrol · 1 year ago

Hi Al:

"Of course, banning a user from a large forum because they announced their intent to leave the forum makes perfect and rational sense."

In fact, all such pronouncements are grandstanding. If you want to leave, leave. If you make a big fuss about it, you are just trying to call attention to yourself.


"...asking “What happened to the long thread that was here yesterday?” is grounds for banning a user from a site?"

That is not grounds for banning. I have never suspended or disciplined a user for asking such a question. It does not happen.

"Effectively, the moderators and administrators of E-sangha have set themselves up as the final authority on what is or is not Buddhism and which Buddhist groups or organizations are really Buddhist and which are not."

We have decided what we will permit in our forum. We have decided, based again on collective experience, that certain topics and groups are not a healthy fit for a forum such as ours, hence no NKT, etc. The internet is a large place, people are free to go where they wish.

"The fact that you can ban anyone who disagrees with you on your own say-so surely doesn’t affect how people interact with you on E-sangha, right?"

I could but I don't. The people I have banned in the past are restricted primarily to those people whom the moderators decide to ban, which is a collective group process, and people who play games and try to use dual nicknames. Other than that, I have not banned anyone.

You are not helping this by making baseless exaggerations such as:

"If they post a picture of themselves wearing their robes, they’ll be banned..."

Any Dharma teacher or clergy person who wants to out themselves as such may do so, providing they provide clear information about their credentials. Prosser, for example, was banned for misrepresenting his credentials. We have banned some other so called "lamas", "priests" and "monks". We have an obligation to protect newcomers from con-men and predators.

"If they, like certain Zen priests, question a literal interpretation of Reincarnation or other doctrines, they’ll be banned."

Literal rebirth is a non-negotiable at E-Sangha, that happens to have been one of the few things Peter liked about E-Sangha, though now of course, he has changed his tune.

As I have pointed out, the vast majority of people who complained about E-Sangha censorship are the Buddhism lite (tm) folks who want their Buddhism to be less filling. They can go elsewhere.

"So, E-sangha is really a web forum for “Beliefs that Malcolm and other moderators approve of coming from lineages or organizations that they recognize” and no one else."

Yes, that covers all Buddhist schools, but excludes the fringes and the post-modern "interpretations". There are other forums where like minded people may go, if they is what they like. E-Sangha is not for them. We are not a suitable forum for everyone, and we do not pretend to be. Our mandate is the propagation of traditional Buddhist schools in Tibet, South Asia and the Far-East and their western off-shoots.

N

Namdrol · 1 year ago

Addendum:

"Our mandate is the propagation of traditional Buddhist schools in Tibet, South Asia and the Far-East and their legitimate western off-shoots."

Al Billings · 1 year ago

And you get to decide what is legitimate and what is not, right?

I've never heard of "Buddhism Lite (tm)" before. It sounds like a straw man that you've created though.

So, effectively, your final response to all criticisms isn't to really address the criticisms but to say, "It's our forum. Lump it or leave it."

namdrol · 1 year ago

Hi Al:

"And you get to decide what is legitimate and what is not, right?"

It is a consensus.




"I’ve never heard of “Buddhism Lite ™” before. It sounds like a straw man that you’ve created though."

It's an old term, and refers to Buddhism without rebirth, without karma (or watered down variants) and so on.

"So, effectively, your final response to all criticisms isn’t to really address the criticisms but to say, “It’s our forum. Lump it or leave it.”"

It is hard to take your criticisms seriously since you don't permit contrary opinions on this thread-- one of the Zen moderators has left comments on this thread you have seen fit not to approve. Who knows who else has left comment, positive and negative.

The only reason you are permitting my comments is that you and Peter have chosen to make things personal. I don't get personal, never have, which is why I can say, as I have repeated, I have run interference for you, and I never had a problem with Peter. But you guys hold an irrational grudge, in my opinion, and personally blame me for practices and policies that were compiled and voted on by the board of moderators and founding members, policies which I have virtually nothing to do with creating, apart from the rebirth clause, which I insisted upon.

And yes, to some extent, we are telling you that if you are not happy at E-Sangha, there are many other places you can find like-minded people,and so you should go there. But I have examined these others forums, and while they are fine as far as they go, they don't have the diversity that we do.

Our forum grew organically, on its own. It continues because it has natural inertia that propels it forward. Like all things, it will eventually decay and die. In the meantime, people can either enjoy E-Sangha, understanding what E-Sangha is and what it is not; or simmer in resentment with misplaced personal grudges that are largely based on projection and fantasy; or, having decided that E-Sangha is not for them, they can just get on with their lives without accumulating further verbal non-virtues.

N

Shikpo · 1 year ago

" accumulating further verbal non virtues " Hmmm. At this point it would be easy to quote numerous "verbal non virtues " emanating from Namdrol. However I am more interested in the fact that under this statement is an veiled implication that critisising E sangha is to accrue negative karma. Well If that is the intention, I dont buy it. The motivation here it seems to me is virtuous. It is to be more inclusive concerning a range of views within the Buddhist fold than are able to be aired on E sangha. It is also to provide moral support for those who are being, have been, or will be bullied and humiliated by some of the E sangha mods in general and by Namdrol in particular.
Note that Namdrol is choosing to see this as a problem between himself and Karma Gedun and Al etc. The fact that Namdrol is carefully neglecting to see is that this view of himself is widely shared on E Sangha. I have no reason to lie about this, it is well known. Namdrol is either being a naif about this, or disingenious.
What this forum has done is to provide a platform for views that are widespread on E sangha concerning Namdrol. Indeed I would venture to suggest that they may represent the views of the majority. Frankly only someone who is able to listen very selectively indeed could be unaware of the widespread negative view of Namdrol.
I take no pleasure in reporting this fact, but fact it is.

Namdrol · 1 year ago

"However I am more interested in the fact that under this statement is an veiled implication that critisising E sangha is to accrue negative karma."

The kind of baseless gossip, wild speculation and politicking here here is what I am referring to.

"What this forum has done is to provide a platform for views that are widespread on E sangha concerning Namdrol. Indeed I would venture to suggest that they may represent the views of the majority"

This is a total exaggeration. Of course there are people, who for whatever reason, don't like me. I really do not believe for one minute that the majority of the 5000 users on e-Sangha have as negative of me as you pretend. If they did, they would not remain.

N

Lojong It · 1 year ago

" no-one has ever been permitted subjected to such a lengthy and unmoderated character attack at our site, not Roach, Gyatso, or anyone."

Welcome to the twilight zone LOL.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

" they would not remain "
Again, naive or disingenous ? You choose.
In reality people stay on E sangha in many cases despite you Namdrol. They wince at particularly heavy handed put downs and then move on. The alternative is either to stop logging on to E S, and I know a number of people who have taken that option because of you, or to concentrate on the many positive and helpful people to be found on the Forum and to see your thuggish presence as part of the price to be paid by belonging to the largest Buddhist E forum. They know that should they attempt to address these issues on the Forum itself that they will be suspended, invisibled or banned. This is not mere speculation on my part, I know this to be true of many. I suspect that if the true situation were to be made clear to you, regarding the way that you are perceived by those who do form part of your coterie, even you would be taken aback. You have become a byword for authoritarian and deeply unBuddhist nastiness.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

That of course should read "those who do NOT form part of your coterie "

Al Billings · 1 year ago

@Namdrol: It is hard to take your criticisms seriously since you don’t permit contrary opinions on this thread– one of the Zen moderators has left comments on this thread you have seen fit not to approve. Who knows who else has left comment, positive and negative.

Well, I have no idea what you are referring to. By and large, I approve comments left on this thread. I can't think of any that I have not approved other than obvious spam. Once I've approved your first comment, I don't need to approve the rest unless I rescind the poster's ability.

So, to be clear, you're speaking out of your hat, Malcolm. I haven't stopped one of your Zen moderators from posting here and I review the comments waiting moderation several times a day.

Leaving that aside, even if it were true (and it isn't), this isn't an open forum, Malcolm. This is my blog. As I've said, the forum is over at openbuddha.com. So, if I decided that someone was causing more trouble than they were worth, etc., I would have no qualms about not approving a comment here. At the end of the day, Open Buddha is like a salon or a coffeehouse. This is more like my porch or living room. It is my bully pulpit from which to speak and people can comment on the posts if they wish. As is clear when you scroll through the list of comments, it isn't designed for a huge amount of back and forth but for comments on blog posts.

namdrol · 1 year ago

"So, if I decided that someone was causing more trouble than they were worth, etc..."

This is exactly the criteria we apply remedies at e-Sangha.

Sorry, you are just being a hypocrite.

namdrol · 1 year ago

"This is exactly the criteria we apply remedies at e-Sangha."


Should be:

""This is exactly the criteria we use to apply remedies at e-Sangha."

namdrol · 1 year ago

"You have become a byword for authoritarian and deeply unBuddhist nastiness."

It is pretty clear you and Peter are merely carrying out a slanderous grudge campaign, which begins with your dislike of ChNN. You are just playing politics in the name "Dharma". This whole site, as well as Open Buddha is just politics.

The sad thing is that you people waste your time worrying about my person when you have much better things to spend your time on.

Well, I have had my say.

Shikpo, you are tripping, you really need something better to do with your time.

Al Billings · 1 year ago

It isn't hypocrisy. I can't help it if you don't understand the difference between a personal blog meant for one person and a forum meant for many. They are not remotely the same thing. You don't see me criticizing you for not posting or removing comments on your personal blog (of course, you don't actually use it anymore...), do you? This is about a large site with thousands of users and many many moderators over years. Your attempts to divert the conversation are not going to serve you well here.

The only hypocrite here is you, Malcolm. Why don't you answer the questions I asked earlier here?

Al Billings · 1 year ago

Malcolm, you don't even have an account on Open Buddha so I really doubt if you know what is going on there. To point out the obvious, the people that you are criticizing here (besides myself) are not even active on the site.

I would suggest that when standing in a hole, you should stop digging. You're only adding to the permanent record here of your style of interaction with people. It has already spawned a new post here on the blog (last night).

Namdrol · 1 year ago

"Malcolm, you don’t even have an account on Open Buddha so I really doubt if you know what is going on there. To point out the obvious, the people that you are criticizing here (besides myself) are not even active on the site."

Starlight posts there. And I do examine your site. You cloned our site. Imitation is flattery.

But I don't post at other sites, as I don't have time. There are a lot of them I could post at-- but I am busy.

As I said, I think that you will discover that it is a whole different ball game when you have thousands of users.

And your new post is just recycled complaints. There is nothing new there Al.

There is also a record of your style of interacting with people, Al, as well as Peter's, and so on. It is strange indeed to think that everyone reading these pages will think that your and their words are lovely and wonderful, while mine s horrible, blah blah, blah.

Frankly, most people will laugh at the immaturity of the whole thing. You guys are really creating a tempest in a teacup.

And yes, that is dismissive, and so on. Why is it dismissive? Because you are complaining about things the moderating team is not prepared to change, whether I am an admin or not. So, basically, I think you are wasting your time. But it is your time, and not mine.

N

Al Billings · 1 year ago

Well, I can't say that I cloned your site. I did model the breakdown of forums after that of E-sangha because, frankly, they were a good idea. Otherwise, there is nothing similar to E-sangha's setup on my own. If it takes off, I'll be happy. If it doesn't, I won't worry about it. At the end of the day, I don't live to run web forums.

As to the record here, well, I'm not concerned. It's a blog. I've got content here going back five years. Some of it is innane and some of it is not. It's a normal record of a tech geek's thoughts who happens to have gone through various interests and changes. It's a blog. I'm not terribly worried about the permanent record here. If I was, I wouldn't post or have comments. It is what it is.

I'm not the one with the posse that seems to hate my guts, Malcolm. That anger is representative of something. You can blame them if you want, for it, but it doesn't change the fact that you've made a set of people very angry or upset with you over time.

Again, if you are supposed to be a Buddhist teacher, I would expect you to exhibit the best qualities of the Dharma instead of seeming like another thug on the net looking for an argument. That has been my E-sangha experience though so I can't really complain if others feel the same way. One way or the other, it's your karma though and nothing posted here is going to change it.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

I have no idea what " tripping" means in this context.
I know next to nothing about Chogyam Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, I certainly have no " dislike " of him. How could that be inferred from what I wrote ?
No Namdrol, the trouble is not projection.
The trouble is not a teacher I know little about.
Neither is it politics.

You can thrash and squirm and whine and protest all you want.
But the trouble is you.
You are totally unsuited to the role you have within E Sangha.
You clearly have a great deal of theoretical knowledge.
You equally clearly have no understanding at all of human person to person dynamics.
You would be better deployed in a advisory role to those with interpersonal skills.
It must be very frustrating to you not to able to make all this go away by invisibling.....

Namdrol · 1 year ago

"That anger is representative of something."

Yes, it represents their afflictions in action.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

So there.

Al Billings · 1 year ago

I think you're both done here. I'm going to start moderating the comments on this thread since there are now 93 (!) comments here.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

Fair enough Al. I agree that your hospitality has been abused. I acknowledge my part in that and withdraw. Properly this time. So long.

Namdrol · 1 year ago

"It must be very frustrating to you not to able to make all this go away by invisibling….."

If it frustrated me, I wouldn't read it and I wouldn't respond. I initially started reading this thread because I could not believe how insane Karma Gendun's complaints were, how disconnected with reality, frankly. Then you and started having a mutual love-in which, and your overblown assertions were also adding fuel to KD's fire. Really, frankly, it's pretty sad.

You and he, and the others do not have any substantive cause for complaint other than your personal distaste for me. Generally speaking, people are not going to judge a whole community because of one person. People who read this are not going to judge all of e-Sangha based on what they read here. Some people will sign on, and they will like it. Other people will hate it right away, and yet others will like it for a while, and then hate it, and so on. We have a 90 percent attrition rate, which is to say that over the past 5 years, 45,000 people or so have passed through, and of those, a bit more than 10 percent are sign on and read regularly. We have about 5,000 active users.

I am responding because you guys simply have it wrong, and you harm your case by indulging in wild, unfounded exaggerations that you then compound things by conflating those issues with my person.

We don't set threads invisible at e-Sangha because we don't happen to like what people say-- we do so because we have policies that are clearly outlined by which we judge certain statements and certain topics to be disruptive to the whole community.

People say all kinds of things at e-Sangha that I don't happen to like very much or agree with. But the fact is that the vast majority of users and posts never encounter a moderator or an admin.

As for other specific bitches, people need to bring these things up with individual moderators since admins have very little daily interaction with users in terms of moderation.

We actually try to do our best to support and help users, answer their concerns and deal with their complaints. In return, we expect cooperation and that people adhere to the guidelines that we have developed over the past five years. Some people seem incapable of this, and so they run into some difficulty.

So, in general, even though I think you guys are wasting your time on all the wild fantasies you have spun here, I really do hope you get one with your lives and stop wasting your precious human birth on being annoyed at an internet bulletin board managed by someone you don't happen to like very much. There really are much, much more important things, like uprisings in Tibet, slaughter of Iraqi civilians by criminals running the US Government and so forth to be worried about-- so put it into perspective-- this is just not an EFF (http://www.eff.org) type of issue, though Al dearly wishes that it were.


N

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

Just to sign off from this thread with thanks Al.

Its a good thing you are doing.

_/\_


Metta,

Peter.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

I recently logged on to E sangha for the first time in a while and was reminded of another big problem on that forum. The fact that a proportion of the most frequent posters are completely stuck. Two posters in particular have once more started to rehearse their well worn views on Rebirth. They are saying nothing that they have not said a score of times. They are getting the same replies that they have got scores of times. Nothing moves, its stasis. We are not talking about the same debate with different people. These are the same people who have been going over the same ground for three, maybe four years. I have some sympathy with the mods, but also in part it is their lack of skill and in some cases their dogmatism, which is fuelling this. Its a huge game being played by a large core group, posters and mods. Some of these people must spend literally hours a week going round the same wheel, week in week out, year in year out. It obviously in some cases is a substitute for life and for practice. It is a lesson I think for all of us. the way that seeking can become and end in itself, a self perpetuating game to give meaning to mundane existence.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

Just to add, I think the issue i have outlined above is in large measure due to a website attempting to substitute for real flesh and blood sangha. It seems to me that this inevitably leads to personality cult, which perpetuates itself in cyberspace, due to the lack of face to face interaction. A Buddhist website is clearly potentially of great value, but not as a substitute for real hands-on sweat.

Shikpo · 1 year ago

There are two main types of personality cult on E Sangha. The dogmatic authoritarian, and the person with a compulsive need to challenge that authority. I dont need to point to an example of the first. The second can be identified easily. Look out for a frequent use of terms like " oft " and "thusly " to see one prime example.

The point being that these two types arise in relation to each other and define each other. They are equally stuck in my opinion.

mark Rogow · 1 year ago

Namdrol, you write:

"Our mandate is the propagation of traditional Buddhist schools in Tibet, South Asia and the Far-East and their western off-shoots."

If that were true Namdrol, you would ban the SGI immediately. They are not a traditional Buddhist school. They are a new religion that appropriates the Lotus Sutra to give credibility to their Value Creation Philosophy. As a representative of the Kempon Hokke which has a 700 year tradition of martyrs and exiles, I resent that you allow the SGI to transmit their ostensibly non-Buddhist teachings on E-sangha while sanctioning me to the tune of 70% for criticizing them. Is it because they are very very rich and powerful and I have no wealth or following? Id so, that is the world of Animality and proof of the true nature of E-sangha.

Mark

mark Rogow · 1 year ago

Hey Al, you guys don't know what an impact you have over there on E-sangha. One post here and I've been banned from e-sangha in a matter of an hour. Fortunately, I saved all my blog entries because I knew this day was coming and coming fast. Keep up the good work.

Mark

mark Rogow · 1 year ago

Just an update, so as not to be percieved as a liar, I have been reinstated or couldn't log on for other reasons. Anyway, besides for this, what I said before stands and with 70% warning level, the writing is on the wall.

Nice to have another outlet to vent.

Mark

Klaud Nine · 1 year ago

It's funny how E-Sangha tries to keep Buddhism authentic, yet they have a quote on their main page which describes Buddhism inaccurately.

Klaud Nine · 1 year ago

Hello guys. There's a new Buddhism forum: http://www.buddhistforums.net/

Shikpo · 1 year ago

I have just been told that one of the most prolific posters on E sangha " Floating Abu " has been banned. I wonder what his/her crime was.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

If that is true about Abu its a pity. However it has to be said that she has been seemingly intent on becoming banned for a while, whether consciously or not. There is a big difference it seems to me between standing your ground and stating your views on the one hand ,for which no-one should be penalised, and going out of your way to irritate the mods on the other. I dont think that Abu's departure is a reflection of anything other than a case of someone who fell into the trap of firing the bullets others had made for her. While the bullet maker ducked beneath the parapet

Floating_Abu · 1 year ago

It's occurred to me that there are a group of diverse sites out there which lack only the critical mass.

Mass builds mass - energy attracts energy - else it gets boring i.e. if there is not the ongoing dialogue, and until then the reality is E-sangha represents and informs a lot of people on what Buddhism is. We can hope that is not building believers or dogmatists only but there are still good people in the midst so it's just another eco-system :)

So to add to the mix, there's forums such as WebSangha and BuddhaChat, amidst others. Some people just need to congregate together - or not.

To be fair to Namdrol, I think many actions are taken by other moderators - and not everyone who makes decisions comes to the fore. We are all heirs to our kamma, including myself.

Good practice, everyone. Don't neglect the medicine :)

Best wishes,
Abu

pintor · 1 year ago

I stumbled into this blog and posted to the earlier thread. This thread is very entertaining. I doubt I will be banned for posting there or here even if I am critical and the sharp eyes of the dharma police over at e-sangha spot this participation.

Now I notice the little phrase at the bottom of this form with the smiley "You're being watched. Disable"

Shall I take that seriously too? Being an old anarchist I question all authority, even my own. That said I have to hand it to the passion expressed here. It does stir klesha-mind doesn't it?

Good luck with the new forum. I hope it succeeds. I'll probably check in over there too.

Meanwhile I'll continue to drop my little turds into the e-sangha threads. I suppose if you want to examine at least some level of tolerance over there, they let my blog stand. It is pretty uncommon and non-traditional in presenting a vajrayana sensibility.

P

O Nyigmu ( luminous ancient em · 1 year ago

such a mess

I just learned the coolest thing that pride is ultimately only overcome with the 10 virtues or that the faults of body (killin etc...) speech (divisive, harsh, lying...etc... and mind (wrong views...) are all obscurations and that the overlay to the entire thing is associated with pride/naval/hari...

When I was young arrogance turned me on, and now it just pisses me off or angers me. And many people are just having one response or the other to the arrogance on esangha. Those who follow the game are turned on, those who are pissed... are turned off...winds in one direction or the other.
Everyone is stuck and it’s really disheartening.

One stuck leader, many stuck followers and dissenters...too bad.

I work at a high school where the floors are never mopped, the books are old and filled with mistakes, racial politics has replaced an emphasis on proper behavior and way too many of the students are illiterate. Those who are highly capable suffer from diminished skills from being in neglectful environments. Students threaten to kill and harm teachers and return to class the next day. It is a sick environment where students perform public dramatizations about their latest shop lifting and sexual acts. 13 year old gang members are killing each other in the neighborhood and everyone is complacent in the chaos and stress of the environment. This is an abridged litany, leaving out the drug and alcohol problems...but there have been times when I am expressly livid and throw a fit about publically being subjected to listening to a girl child tell 400 ninth graders how her boyfriend put his mouth on her crotch.

Esangha pulls up the same kind of outrage. There is something fundamentally wrong with the way people are treated, corrected and banned when they are believed to be wrong. It fosters a split in the sangha and not union. Milarepa corrected people and they instantly saw the wisdom in it. When I see it on e-sangha it just gives me a case of the reflected ass.

Must be why we are told to avoid pointing out others faults and not to create schisms in sangha and disharmony with vajra bro and sis...

grow up malcomn, and thats in vajra years

Lung Tha · 1 year ago

Hello all,

One time i was banned from e-sangha because i used the term
lamaism like you use it in Buddhism. Also in some books of Evantz Wentz they use it. So it took me about one year to get in again on the forum : e-sangha.

Finally Malcolm decided to let me in again. So he has that power over other administrators to do that.

Further did Malcolm closed abrupt on the Bön Forum my question from Vajrayana to Bön with the remark that it would be not good and because i mentioned that the Shakyamuni Buddha did not teached Dzogchen.

Here i would mention that Malcolm is not so fanatic like the rest like the Singapore boyz or club. They are not so well educated like Malcolm, therefore the Singapore Boyz behave like people with one eye.


Recently is the Bön Forum banned because i did not accept that on a Bön Forum we have to defend Bön like Bön lawyers.

Further is Bön a Tibetan tradition has its Buddha's like in Vajrayana but because it was earlier in Tibet etc. it is called Bön and the followers are Bönpo's who respect the teachings of the Shakyamuni because He is a Buddha like the Buddha from Bön is too. But Shakyamuni followers are called Buddhists and Bön followers Bönpo's.

On E-Sangha arose the question are Bönpo's Buddhists which i replied with no they are Bönpo's.

Further did i replied that it was impolite tos ask such a question on a Bön Forum because Bönpo's would never make the question: Can a Buddhist be concidered a Bönpo?

Here it is also playing with words like in Lamaism a word game with the concequence that the whole Bön Forum was banned from the Tibetan tradition Forum.

So they insist that Bön have to call themselves Buddhists
which is not the case because they follow another Buddha and beause of that they are Bönpo's.

So both traditions follow a Buddha but on e-sangha they force on the Bön Forum about Bönpos that they must agree that they are Buddhists.

Well that has concequences of course for Bönpo's, then their old name is gone and a Bönpo is called Buddhist or a step further Vajrayana follower. So they must be then a part of Vajrayana and so they lose their traditional behaviour.

Further did i suggest to make a Bönpo the moderator of the Bön Forum so that we could start with Bön subjects. That was of course never replied. They keep the politics in their hand.

Then i brought up one time the facts on table of a friend of mine who regular vists the Pomdra monastery in Myosore and this monastery is a sub devision of Sera Me.

Well the young monks don't get support and are starving because they do Dorje Shugden practice which they must do because they must obbey. So my friend told me that the monastery is attacked by the local Tibetans who follow the edict of the Dalai Lama. So i defend the hunger of these young monks whereas i am Bönpo and have nothing to do with the Shugden cult.

So Mr.Henry one of the most fanatic mods told:

It would be better that they would starve with a belly filled with Dorje Shugden then to get compassion from others.

They better should stop practicing!

Sorry i cannot remeber it so exactly but the meaning was that compassion was not on the right place here.

So further he banned me for 6 weeks because i doubted the compassion of a moderator !!!!!!!!!!

This because i defended the hunger of the little children the little monks who are innocent like we all would defend young children.

Well this is about my experiences with this so called Buddhist Forum which covers only the club of certain fanatics and they put all without their own tradition in a strange light by coorperating in this authoretarian self-protecting selfish club.

So for me it is at the very moment equal if they would ban me or not because i never would look into this home made club of incompetent Vajrayana followers who like to stamp others visions.

As a last word. I quit the Roman Catholic Church for the so called selfish politics base on persecution etc.

e-sangha moderators look a little bit like the inquisition or like the Dominicans.

So my complains are seen from another corner but even in this corner i can see much similarities with what you have met with those persons who like it to beat and kick people on a mental way. It is mental perverity because they cause others to suffer by their behaviour.

Others must feel themselves guilty........... and not they are banned.


Regards:

Lung Tha

Lung Tha · 1 year ago

Today is the Bön forum just only for reading. So after throwing out the Bön out of the other 4 Tibetan traditions list, it is now also banned to shut their mouths because it is only for reading. So this means also banned to shut their (Bön) mouths.

Where is the freedom of believe like stated in the constitution ? Herewith is also meant the free practice and believe of the Dorje Shugden tradition.

Best wishes:

Lung Tha

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

Following a heads up had a look at E Sangha today, first time in weeks. It seems to have gone from one extreme,i.e. over modded, to a new age free for all with no sign of modding at all in some forae. Strange. Certain posters who seem to spend most of their waking lives on their pc's at the cost presumably of relationships with family are running amok. The Tibetan Forum once a hotbed of Dzogchen Orthodoxy has become a comparative religion talking shop where people seem obsessed with Mother Teresa. Most odd.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

In the last week or so, I have had cause to regret some the views I expressed on E sangha. In particularly I think that I have made a grave error of judgement concerning the Aro gTer. This is not the place for detail , but suffice it to say that i was poorly informed and hasty and jumped to some inexcusable conclusions. I regret this.

Peter.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

In addition to my comments re. the Aro ( see above ) I have also been vociferous in voicing my doubts on the pages of E Sangha about the authenticity of Traktung Rinpoche. I would like to put on record the fact that I no longer have any doubts in this area. Those doubts I had were sincere, but entirely mistaken. I am in fact convinced that Traktung Rinpoche is a teacher of great and incisive insight into the Dharma.

James · 1 year ago

Very interesting. Did you meet Traktung?

Aro have a huge website rebuffing your previous comments and experiences of your wife.

What has changed for you?

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

Briefly James, The reference to my wife is a misunderstanding, It was another member of my extentended and extensive family that was an Aro student.
I will at the moment restrict my comments here to saying that I am going to try to have my comments about the Aro and Flaming Jewel sangha removed from the E Sangha site. However this might prove tricky as I am banned !

James · 1 year ago

Sincere apologies for getting the fanily connection worng.

Is there is reason why you are restricting your comments here?

I do not want to press you but am genuinely interested in the swing especially as it is being used by Aro themselves as reverse endorsement.

James · 1 year ago

Is there is reason why you are restricting your comments here?

I do not want to press you but am genuinely interested in the swing especially as it is being used by Aro themselves as reverse endorsement.

Doug Lloyd · 1 year ago

Fair play, Karma Gedun, your comments before seem pretty harsh from what I can see, but it's a big thing to admit a mistaken. Good on you. Dougie.

Nsight · 1 year ago

Namdrol:

"Usually people are pissed off at us because they don't like the fact that we don't have room for Buddhism Lite (tm)."

The fact is, the Buddha taught about a Buddhism Lite(TM), and it wasn't the slander to the Tathagata that Alexander Berzin commits with his "Dharma Lite" essay, it is in fact the very same pre-Buddhist, superstitious and speculative views of reincarnation, "merit-making", and deterministic karma that the junta at e-sangha insist are integral to the Buddha's teachings.

These views he called "right view that is tainted". He clearly points to these views as inferior to his own teachings, which he called "Noble Right View that is untainted, transcendent, a Factor of the Path".This Noble Right View and these teachings are based on discernment, and empirical observation of the way things are, not the speculative view or superstitions of the Real Buddhism Lite (TM)

The Buddha declared his teachings to be "visible here and now, timeless, open to inspection, transcendent, and to be experienced by the wise for themselves." He could never have made such a claim were his own unique teachings based in superstition and speculative views. Berzin -- and now Namdrol and the E-Sangha Thought Police -- slander the Buddha with their claim that his pristine teachings were "Dharma Lite".

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

James , I am not restricting my comments. I will answer more fully. I would ask that you give me a little time to sort one or two things out. In brief though, I bought into what everybody "knows " about the Aro. The fact is though that what everybody ( or at least those who are critical ) " knows " is largely wrong, or partial. Speaking personally I overreacted to what I saw as harm done to a family member. The reality was far more complex, and simply amounted to a mismatch between a seeker and a particular teacher. There was no blame attached actually . However it set me off on a mission , a mission which led to me seizing on the negative reaction to the Aro that exists on the web, and using it to reinforce my own prejudices. As I have said, I regret this and intend doing what I can to repair any damage I have caused. Not least to my own sense of what is honourable.
I will write more soon.

P.

daelm · 1 year ago

"However it set me off on a mission , a mission which led to me seizing on the negative reaction...and using it to reinforce my own prejudices."

interesting how that can happen, hey?

lol

on line backgammon · 1 year ago

A person can ruin his/her life if he doesn't know how to control the anger. Infact i would say anger is an emotion which could be utilized in positive way. This energy should be used to eradicate the bad elements, corruption or the bad habits of the society in the best possible way :)

daelm · 1 year ago

KG, i take it you don't see a pattern at all, right? go read the Aro page (http://approachingaro.org/an-intense-experience) that clearly and calmly describes their direct and indirect interaction with you. then read your contributions to this comments thread again. look specifically for the dozens of times you willfully slander and insult others, far beyond anything reasonable, once you've set yourself against them.

very nice teaching moment.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

Daelm, as they say on their page I am in correspondence with them to correct my contribution to any wrong view which as arisen about the Aro . I am glad to do so. I do not however retract or regret anything I have said on this thread about E Sangha or its moderation. I was wrong about the Aro. I believe I am right about E Sangha, there is no pattern, neither is there slander or insult. Just a considered reflection of my experience of E Sangha which clearly reflects the experience of many many others .If I had the time and inclination I could post a score or more interventions from the E sangha mods which would amply illustrate the kind of issues I , and others are reacting to here. There is another Buddhist website which has a whole slew of members banned from E Sangha, whose stories parallel what I have written. There are two seperate issues here, one . my view of E Sangha and its moderation and two my mistaken view of The Aro. The latter I am seeking to redress. Whats YOUR motivation for posting ?

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

I have written to E Sangha to ask them to remove my posts re the Aro and Flaming Jewel Sanghas. I will report back on the result of that. Otherwise my contribution to this thread is at an end.
Things are more farcical then ever on E Sangha, with another organisation banned. The Bon Forum closed, ( see Namdrols post above where he says that the closing of the Dzogchen Forum was mitigated in part by the existence of the Bon Forum, well not any more it aint ) and two more orgs taking legal advice about bringing actions.

Karma Gedun · 1 year ago

I have received no reply to my request to the E Sangha Mods to remove my posts concerning The Aro gTer and The Flaming Jewel Sangha. Its quite likely of course that my request is in in a spam box, because it originated from a pariah " banned " member. I suspect that I can do no more in this area.
I had a quick perusal of E Sangha on Sunday while at a friends house. I dont think it is merely wishful thinking or projection when I say that the Tibetan Forum in particular is a shadow of its former self. I mentioned in a previous post that its main driving force appeared to be mutual antagonism between various factions. With one of the main factions disabled all of the light as well as the heat seems to have ebbed from the Forum .
The Theravada Forum seems to keep on doing a sterling service for its regulars, it is well and sensibly moderated.
On the other forums the usual suspects keep recycling their two or three constant topics ad infinitum. Ho Hum. One can only hope for some kind of rebirth for what could be a valuable resource for other Buddhists, not only the Theravada.
Before signing off , without hesitation I would recommend that anyone who is interested in the Vajrayana check out The Aro gTer and Flaming Jewel Sanghas.
They are doing something very brave and fresh .
_/\_

Al Billings · 1 year ago

In case no one reads the end of the post, there will be no more approved comments on this thread. Please move along, nothing to see.

Wanderer · 1 year ago

I couldn't find the forum on the link you provided.

Try my new site at http://www.i-sangha.com

It's *especially* for people who don't believe in literal rebirth. But we too are struggling to get enough people to keep it ticking over.