Had the Buddha deferred to his teachers there would be no Buddha. Given this, what does it mean to follow in the Buddha’s footsteps?
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The problem for monks and certain Buddhist teachers in the West is that they have made the Dharma their full time job, so now they’re dependent on it to survive, so they can’t let go
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I would offer a slight reframe: "Some may *think* they are dependent on it" and thus think they can't let go... But what is Dharma really? Is it the form we have practiced, or teach, or any particular form at all? Or that which takes various forms in response to...?
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As you said, it is both the form, interpreted in new ways, and new forms.
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The other most brilliant teacher of the 20th cent. was Chogyam Trungpa. Completely fresh, original creative approach to Dharma, quite unorthodox. Yet his followers have petrified his teachings and practices into lifeless monuments to ‘the lineage’.
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I haven’t found this to be universally true, not at all. I met many of Trungpas students while at Naropa and many of them are brilliant, creative people. I’m currently practicing with the dharma ocean peeps and have found to innumerable helpful. What I hear is blanket cynicism.
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That may be your experience of Shambhala in Colorado. My experience of Shambhala was at IHQ in Halifax NS, long after CTR died; a mausoleum to the lineage.
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OK, but Shambhala doesn’t include everyone who practiced with VCTR.
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Yes true and many of his students left Shambhala and went off on their own, like Reggie Ray. The other exceptional student of CTR I met in Halifax was Jerry Granelli, the avant garde jazz drummer. So there are a few. Mostly what I saw in Halifax were sheep-like members of a cult.
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