Message from Ven. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche

[Dave]

Sorry if this in misleading..it's not actually a message from him.


I wanted to see the opinions of those who read my message regarding something I was told from my teacher Kelsang Daosang, which was an actual letter from Geshe Kelsang to all the members of our organization.

The actual letter:

Some small group in our NKT society engadge in meaningless activity on the internet,not only Sangha,some lay.
This is incorrect. We are Kadampa Practioners,Kadampa Teachers.
Why are we enjoying meaningless activity,discussion?
We can have a meaningful discussion with pure practioners or senior practioners,Teachers. There is no meaning in talking about silly things publicly on the internet.
Instead,make meaningful discussion with our pure practitioners.Please give my message to the indivuals of this group. Stop meaningless discussion on the internet.
If you wish,do meaningful discussion with senior teachers or pure practitioners,or meaningful discussion with your Teacher.
No meaning engadging in silly Q&A on the internet.
 Please Gen-la Khyenrab,pass my message.
I am telling you for your purpose and our society's purpose.In this way,keep indivuals and society pure and show a very good example.

You can enjoy yourself,the Kadampa way of life,integrating every kind of daily appearance into Lamrim practice,and pacify all problems of anger,attachment,ignorance,and enjoy deep inner peace,wsdom,love,compassion,renunciation,bodhichitta,correct view of emptiness.
Enjoy all this Holy Dharma.For ex. Shantideva explains in Guide to the Bodhisattva's way of liffe Ch.7 Verse 15 says:

"Why do I forsake the joy of Dharma,
Which is a boundless source of happiness,
Just to seek pleasure in distractions and meaningless pursuits
That are only causes of sufferning?"

But what he has asked his students is to stop using forums to discuss (meaningless) topics and instead converse with teachers and sangha instead in person and avoid the pointless activities of online forums.

Mainly my questions was; should I stop posting on this forum?
Even though I was given this advice from my Root Guru?
I feel it's important on this website...but I could be misleading myself and lettign it because a distraction.


Any advice would be welcome.

PS,this is also why if anyone has noticed,there are no longer anymore NKT forums..

[beggar]

Dear Dave,
thanks for your message. i totally understand your Guru's advice to stop writing in on forums; what good could possibly come from slandering back and forth. We want to create something different here, where we share and debate as and among friends. You have noticed how starkly it stands out when someone starts bashing aimlessly in the fashion of other forums.
Whether or not we waste time here is really dependent on our motivation, if we don't leave more
motivated to check our own minds and practice harder after reading/writing here, it's indeed still a distraction.
Personally i think Ven. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso would approve of our endeavors and your participating, as long as you do it as Dharma practice. Then again, i don't know him and maybe you best check with your resident teachers, show them our site and see what they think.

Right now it would be great and urgent if you could share the sample letters and addresses provided by Alexis, Jeff, Namdrol and A Friend here so kindly and get as many Dharma friends as possible to send letters and mails to the Indian (and Tibetan) government to help the Sangha, as soon as possible.

Thank you!

yours, beggar

[mountains]

Dear Dave,

 I agree with beggar's advice. Motivation is the key factor. What harm does this forum do to your practice is what you should check up in your own mind. In fact it might support your practice by giving you online support, knowledge and information to create more faith in your dharmaphala which is the key issue that all the 'controversies' hinge on.

Your going to anyway watch tv, go to the movies, eat at resteraunts, talk to friends on the phone, go on trips, shopping, crossword puzzles, read entertainment magazines, car rides to the country, play chess, gourmet in the kitchen, beach, videos, arcades, theatres, dinner parties, etc etc which 'waste' time or relax your mind. Arent those actions considered a waste of time or distraction. Truth be told, we do need some form of relaxation. With a dharma attitude, relaxing activities are very helpful.

I think forum if done with the true intent of disseminating information would be very helpful. Have you benefitted from this forum? Please check within your mind.

Advice from our gurus that we should follow is to fully transform our minds. If we wish to follow our guru's advice, why be selective? Follow thoroughly.


We should hold our refuge, bodhisattva, and tantric precepts perfectly. Engage in retreats, prolonged meditations, and watch our minds daily with full focus. We should find our values and thoughts transforming and that is the best way to follow our gurus's advice.

 

[mountains]

I think one of the NKT members writing in to NKT central office to ask for advice re all the issues happening now and what to do has brought this latest message from Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. How kind he is to do whatever he can to protect his many students' practice.

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[Dave]

Mountains,

Actually this advice letter came long before this was happening..at least since last summer.

But i'm sure it still applies...as i'm sure Geshe-la knew of this arising awhile before..considering his uncle was the Dharmapala's Vessel.

[mountains]

Dear Dave,

Thanks for letting me know that the instructions were sent long ago by your teacher. My apologies and deepest respects to Geshe Kelsang.

I dont think we are discussing meaningless subjects on this website. I dont think we are simply gossiping re dates, marriages, games, money, intercourse, business, or fun. We are very concerned re our practice in relations to Dorje Shugden and this is a online support system that is freely provided. I am grateful for it. I am sure there are within NKT who are in doubt, or have questions. This website can provide them with some answers when they are far away all over the globe. As well as many other non NKT members who have questions. So I dont think contradiction to your guru's advice is the question here. It is again motivation. Do you come away after being involved in the forum here and or the actual website with more understanding towards your practice and awareness of what other practitioners are going through? If you do, then it has not been meaningless activities.

Geshe la is a advanced being coming from a Tibetan Culture that had not much activities besides dharma. So they have not much habituations culturally to have other preoccupations. Also their society doesnt believe in talking things out in the open to clear doubts or misunderstandings. Dharma is just taking root outside of Tibet and it requires alot of questioning, answers, disscussions and finally understanding. Engaging in that is healthy for someone brought in this type of expression. Eastern culture is more about silence and it goes away hopefully. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. Non-Easterners, find it easier to talk, express, share and open up. It is in fact commended. Sometime this works also and sometimes it doesnt, just the same.

This website helps in open discussion and talk directly about dharma. To share and have support. To listen to other views that might create and stimulate more thinking to eventually strengthen one's practice. So I do not think it is meaningless activity. It is a different cultural approach to affirming and making one's practice firm/strong and clear. My motivation in being involved in this great website is to understand my practice better because I truly have seen Dorje Shugden's benefits in mine and the lives of many. I would like to share my humble two cents from time to time also to help others. I have derived immense benefit from sharing in this website. So I conclude for me it is a dharma practice to be involved here because it strengthens my practice during these difficult times. After all, dharma practice and understanding can come in many ways deriving beautifully according to one's individual cultural modes of expression.

[a friend]

We can have a meaningful discussion with pure practioners or senior practioners,Teachers. There is no meaning in talking about silly things publicly on the internet.

Dearest NKT practitioners,

The words of your Holy Teacher boil down in concrete terms to the advice in the quote.

I beg you to ponder them. If you follow the first part, then you are ok. Here in this website you can have a meaningful discussion with pure practitioners or senior practitioners and even Teachers of the pure lineage of Je Tsongkapa, devotees of the great supramundane Protector of Je Rinpoche's teachings.

If you follow the second part, then you are walking a more dangerous ground, because this is an open website, and there is no doubt that some people enter here and try to talk about silly things. Just read the Guestbook of last week, or even yesterday's.

If you find yourselves able to quickly recognize these immature people, or even immature things that we practitioners say sometimes, and do not follow neither of them in discussion, not even in your own minds, then you are pretty safe.

If you are unsure, please follow your Lama's advice and forget about us. Unless some senior Teacher from NKT has the time to read this website and approuve it and talk to Venerable Rinpoche about it.

[Zhalmed Pawo]

That letter by GKG was about the Yahoo-group NKT-Chat. The Chat was an official part of NKT (having even a Kadampa teacher as a moderator), but the discussions at some point had deteriorated into gossip and idle chatter, so it was thereby closed down.

Discussions there periodically deteriorated, and then again improved (in a truly cyclic fashion). It was meant to be a place to discuss Kadampa Dharma, but in the end there was much more talk about dharma-politics and "who-has-done-what-or-not" type of stuff. (I personally enjoyed it ) But anyway, since the paticipants couldn't hold their horses, the Chat was closed.

I'm telling this here, so that nobody would think that the letter has anything to do with this Rattle that Cage forum.

[Ensapa]

That letter by GKG was about the Yahoo-group NKT-Chat. The Chat was an official part of NKT (having even a Kadampa teacher as a moderator), but the discussions at some point had deteriorated into gossip and idle chatter, so it was thereby closed down.

Discussions there periodically deteriorated, and then again improved (in a truly cyclic fashion). It was meant to be a place to discuss Kadampa Dharma, but in the end there was much more talk about dharma-politics and "who-has-done-what-or-not" type of stuff. (I personally enjoyed it ) But anyway, since the paticipants couldn't hold their horses, the Chat was closed.

I'm telling this here, so that nobody would think that the letter has anything to do with this Rattle that Cage forum.

Hmm that is interesting. Any chat site has the propensity to degenerate into a gossip site, and it is up to a skilful moderator to nudge people back into topic. It is part of human nature, and so since there is a lack of someone who is capable of doing this, Geshe Keslang Gyatso obviously is left with no choice but to close it down. I certainly do hope that NKT members do not stop posting in this forum (well, there's a lot less space to have idle chatter here in this forum due to having a proper structure and having moderators in place) because they would be able to learn a lot about Dorje Shugden here, and at the same time they can share with us some of Geshe Keslang Gyatso's great teachings which I am sure will benefit all of us here.

[Ratna Shugden]

Right views(Eightfold Path)>Right Thoughts(Eightfold Path)>Right Speech(Eightfold Path)>Bodhichitta>Moral Obligation to share authentic Buddha Dharma with all other Dharma practitioners

[Ensapa]

Right views(Eightfold Path)>Right Thoughts(Eightfold Path)>Right Speech(Eightfold Path)>Bodhichitta>Moral Obligation to share authentic Buddha Dharma with all other Dharma practitioners

yes, but unfortunately one can easily overstep this boundary and end up committing wrong speech by revealing Dharma to those who are not ready. You can see this example in Dharmawheel who talks about Dzogchen and Mahamudra as well as Tantra in full, public view. Sharing the Dharma isnt a moral obligation because to put it that way would be the same as christians spread the gospel because it is their religious obligation. We share the Dharma to those who request for them and who need them rather than just shove it down the throats of any tom, dick and harry that we encounter. The fine line between sharing the Dharma and being an evangelist can be easily breached, and once you're an evangelist, you turn people away from the Dharma due to inconsistent actions and speech.