Here is a quotation from Christine A Chandler's book, Enthalled: The Guru Cult of Tibetan Buddhism. (CHandler pages 108 - 111)
For comparison, here is something from a well informed participant in earlier CEI discussions, describing cognitive behavioral therapy.
Finally, here is another great contribution from The Anticult.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Byron Katie, a commercial mystic, has four questions. If you cannot
be sure that something is absolutely true, you cannot know if it is real. She uses this to get people to distrust their own thoughts, their own emotions, the stories they tell themselves -- then get them to believe only in Byron Katie
and in HER story. Likewise, the Buddhists and Hindus use teaching stories about
the guy who panicked because he saw a snake in the dark, then discovered
it was not a snake it was a rope, so therefore one cannot assume that one's perceptions are real....next thing you know you let some guru take over your life.
So far, no one has ever calculate the last digit of Pi.
But one can use Pi to create mathematical models that are approximately
precise enough to design bridges and airplanes capable of supporting the weight of the various Tibetan gurus and their entourages who come visiting us.
Quote
..our first Shambhala weekend, as we sat there, cross-legged on our cushions, meditating by following our breath and silently saying 'thinking' when we noticed any thoughts that arose in our minds, positive or negative,
before we started to follow them as a narrative.
"It was a very effective method to make sure we never followed through on any thoughts that might tell us to "go, get out of here" it was time to leave, "thes group is weird and suspicious", and that "it might not be a healthy thing to be around a group that seems to be constantly talking about their gurus."
These kinds of thoughts were immediately cut.
In fact, the more vivid they were, the more you would notice them and say "thinking" to yourself and let them go.
"Trungpa had borrowed from a cognitive behavioral therapy model, which he woudl be well aware of, using a "cutting technique" of thoughts that were causing anxiety or reinforcing phobias or other fears. In this form of therapy, would would imagine oneself in a real situation, experience the anxiety that came up when the feared object or situation came to mind, and then say, "cut" or "stop think" to oneself if anxiety or fear about the imagined situation arose; then
relaxing into the visualized situation. The idea was that this more relaxed feeling would be paired now with the visualized situation, the fear and anxiety replaced with a confident relaxation around the same stimuli in vivo.
It was a very effective behaviorist technique. I had used it myself, for a fear I had of public speaking.
However, unlike this cutting of certain habitual thoughts, targeting certain associations, Trungpa's technique was to stop all thoughts from forming;
to create a non-judgemental, 'no good - no bad' state of mind, that could later
ignore the egregious, exploitative behavior of those lamas, by labeling every negative thought as 'just thinking.'
Quote
"We were captivated early in this Shambhala shrineroom, on those cushions, meditating for many hours at a time, by the process of ignoring, ignoring, ignoring our thoughts...This subtle cutting technique would eliminate, by itself, eventually fading into the space around us. When it dissolved on its
own, we became in a sense, beside ourselves, lighter and more ethereal, yet tethered more than ever to the group and the guru...Since I liked this "state of mind" it kept me hooked. It prevented me from seeing the exploitation. You want to stay in this space, and the more you do it, the more easily "you" dissolve, left with a mindful clarity that is hard to explain; a spaceous
bubble that feels good and from which you can still be in the regular world, work diligently and hard yet not be of it.
"We all increased our meditation sessions, not only because we were told this was the only way it would have an effect, but because we grew to like this
meditative state of mind.....The more I meditated in the group, "dissolving my thoughts", the less I observed what was actually going on in this group. I lost my objectivity. Instead of noticing how robotic and conforming these students in Trungpa's inner circle were, I started to go along with their slow speaking, and moving and their pretentious Trungpa - mimicking manners during their presentations of the Shambhala path."
For comparison, here is something from a well informed participant in earlier CEI discussions, describing cognitive behavioral therapy.
Quote
https://forum.culteducation.com/read.php?12,12906,53444#msg-53444but we most certainly do NOT need to question ALL of our thoughts. That is just a crackpot technique from Byron Katie to destabilize your sense of Self. Its vicious.
In cognitive therapy, we do question SOME of our thoughts, to see if they are really incorrect, etc. But its done in a moderate way,quite carefully. Even in Zen, you are not to question all of your thoughts, you learn to ACCEPT them.
If a person tries to question ALL of their thoughts, to put it bluntly, they might go freaking nuts! Or get stressed out of their mind. Byron Katie is just trying to mess with people's cognitive faculties. Very very damaging.
Finally, here is another great contribution from The Anticult.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Quote
It is correct that in philosophy of science nothing can be known to be 100% true with Certitude.
But its false to say we can't verify, and only refute. That is a mental-con and false-statement. Is that from Byron Katie?
Science is based on both falsification and verification.
Einstein's Relativity has been VERIFIED thousands of times, and NEVER REFUTED. NEVER.
If you could refute it with evidence, you would win the Nobel Prize.
But does that mean its 100% true for eternity? No. But close!
Its more like a continuum, from 0% likely to 100%.
Nothing is 0% or 100%, but falls in between.
0%------------------------50%-------------
Byron Katie, a commercial mystic, has four questions. If you cannot
be sure that something is absolutely true, you cannot know if it is real. She uses this to get people to distrust their own thoughts, their own emotions, the stories they tell themselves -- then get them to believe only in Byron Katie
and in HER story. Likewise, the Buddhists and Hindus use teaching stories about
the guy who panicked because he saw a snake in the dark, then discovered
it was not a snake it was a rope, so therefore one cannot assume that one's perceptions are real....next thing you know you let some guru take over your life.
So far, no one has ever calculate the last digit of Pi.
But one can use Pi to create mathematical models that are approximately
precise enough to design bridges and airplanes capable of supporting the weight of the various Tibetan gurus and their entourages who come visiting us.