"Bill Scheffel" burned suicide - Google citations
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One very interesting pair of comments following this article.
CTR stands for Chogyam Rinpoche Trungpa.
Some names converted to initials for privacy.
[www.google.com]
One very interesting pair of comments following this article.
CTR stands for Chogyam Rinpoche Trungpa.
Some names converted to initials for privacy.
Quote
B G says:
July 25, 2018 at 3:13 am
“It joins many other examples in popular Shambhala literature and language to paint a picture of a spirituality strongly invested in the tensions of authoritarianism and sado-masochism.”
Really? I’d be interested in seeing more of the “many other examples” to support this statement. I’ve been involved in Shambhala for six years. I appreciate some of the acute observations you have made while this one sems off the mark to me.
Reply
mremski says:
July 25, 2018 at 3:57 am
I’m reviewing the literature presently and would say that the two themes that stand out here are
1) the valuation of sorrow, sadness, anxiety, chaos, “outrageous”, as key to spiritual transparency;
2) the elevation of interpersonal volatility as a teaching method. Scholars can assess the appropriateness of either in the context of Vajrayana content better than me.
I’m describing the mobilization of both to rationalize and spiritualize clear abuses of power. The scenario is: CTR (and his lieutenants, including Thomas Rich (aka Ozel Tendzin, who infected partners with AIDS- Corboy) “pulls the rug out” from underneath students’ “conceptual minds” over and over again, through acts of public or private humiliation. They love-bomb sex partners, then cast them off, etc. The students become sad/anxious/outraged and then are told to “work with it” or “stay in it” to see things “as they truly are”.
“This is for your own good,” says the father wielding the strap. What happens when the child believes that, and even becomes grateful for the punishment?