Bodhisattva fever

Started reading Training The Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa. He's got interesting language, "bodhisattva fever" and "cosmic monster". The book based off the seven point mind training. They are useful slogans that because of their small nature are open to wide interpretation but are best studied with a teacher. There are many version of explication available, even though this used to be a person to person oral teaching.

I can't but help think of his reckless behavior causing suffering. I won't go into. He had that crazy wisdom and tried to shake things up. He had a military unit in Shambhala. Watch the movie Crazy Wisdom. I think they cut out some of the more negative consequences in the release version.

He was among the few survivors who got out, lived a challenging life, with a terrible car accident. He founded Shambhala which is an amazing thing in itself. Founding a sect of American Buddhism or western Buddhism is no small feat. Lots of good in his life.

I agree with bell hooks that the good doesn't erase the negative in terms of using the word love. There has been a lot of abuse by Buddhist teachers. After the Weinstein effect, many people are complaining about abuses of power. I am not immune to sexual misconduct. America gobbled up Trungpa's teachings because Buddhism was new to America. Nevertheless I am reading his book with my critical faculties alive. 

Seven Point Mind Training

The Path To Awakening: How Buddhism's Seven Points of Mind Training Can Lead You to a Life of Enlightenment and Happiness arrived in the mail today. This is by Shamar Rinpoche. The Shamar Rinpoche version is translated and edited by Lara Braitstein.

I've read Becoming a Child of the Buddhas: A Simple Clarification of the Root Verses of Seven Point Mind Training a number of times and have studied it in study groups. This is by Gomo Tulku, translated by Joan Nicell. When you google Gomo Tulku, you get the rapping lama, which I think might be another incarnation. It's hard to untangle the thicket of lineages and teachers. But the one thing to know is that the Seven Point Mind Training might not be a standardized text, and might have different version in different traditions. The whole point of it is to have pithy short verses that pack big punches, so they are changed over time, and each lineage will see various versions as the best one. And then someone translates them into English.

The Seven Point Mind Training goes back to teachings of Atisa, through Checkawa Yeshe Dorje. So the various versions will be based on these. So we're reaching back to Atisa through a number of teachers and a translators.

This one by Shamar Rinpoche, is from the Kadampa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, though the teachings reach out into the modern movements, and other traditions. If you were in that tradition, you'd probably read this version first. I read the Gomo Tulku version as recommended by the TBC. I have no idea why or how that came to be the one to read at that time.

I've listened to talks from FBA on it. I don't know what's going on with their search engine, but I can't find the specific talks.

What strikes me in my memory is that all this stuff has to be critically evaluated, and made sense of. But if you spend time on them, they can come to have great meaning. And that is why I'm excited to read this new version of the teachings. I will check back with you when I get into the book.