Introductions

Hi there,

You may remember me, I used to post quite frequently. In my last post I said that I had had an epiphany of sorts on Christmas morning and realized that I was never going to be able to bring OBC and what had happened to me regarding it into focus and that it was time to let go. In an effort to do so, I sent a note that may (I now see) have been a bit mysterious to Lise and deleted my account with OBC Connect. The purpose in that was to stop me from mooning over the forum so much, and piping up without being really sure I had something that warranted saying. I figured that after a few weeks if I got some perspective I could re-enlist, and didn't therefore see a need to write a swan song. The hiatus worked as expected, kind of like going for a long walk when you've gotten too worked up over something and need to release and recharge. What I didn't expect was for the forum mechanics to turn me into a ghostly "guest". I was puzzled, and mildly worried that my old forum friends would thing I had given them the kiss-off. On the other hand, there was some stuff happening on the forum that I could do without, so I let it be. (That stuff has been left behind, as hot topics are apt to here.)

There were several things that made me need a break. One was the intense scrutiny of the details of RMJK's basic nature, some of which was useful but reams of which were wearing me out. I can't put much value on enneagrams and how many and how deep someone's kenshos were. Who cares? If the OBC gives their members grades on kenshos then it has lost all contact with true spiritual pursuit, and if members of the OBC Connect do it, I would say the same of them. A person's spiritual life is internal, and one's revelations, blessings, grace, however you want to put it, should be in my opinion, kept fairly private. Anyone who speculates on the spiritual maturity of another is missing the point. Anyone who announces their spiritual maturity surely has very little of it. We need to nurture our own spiritual inner life, help those who want and need our help, and the rest is none of our business. That's my call, and I'm sticking to it.

If in fact the OBC has this hierarchy that forum members report, I have no further interest in their organization. (Well, I don't anyway.) When I came to the forum I was hurting bad, when I read that others had received similar treatment it was a huge relief. Then I had some ongoing communication with Rev. Haryo that confused me all over again. Because if I disagreed, I was told that I had misunderstood. Every time. Since I was not willfully misunderstanding I had to conclude that communication in that quarter was not useful, in fact it was harmful to me. Interestingly enough, he brought my forum postings to the attention of the monk I had written about, and then told me how "sickened they were over how I had come to perceive what had happened between us, and wanted to point out that a lot of good had been offered and we should not lose sight of that." That's as close to a direct quote as I can get. Which means that I must have misunderstood everything that went on with that monk, and was ungrateful as well. Do any of you remember how hard I tried to point out how much good I had received from this monk, how much I loved them, and tried to protect them? Funny how that part wasn't noticed.

You may see why I'd had enough.

Final notes: I've received a couple of notices that someone has PM'd me and I cannot access those PM's due, I suppose, to the mechanics of the forum system. Would you try again, please?

I probably won't be real active on the forum again, but I did hate that i disappeared the way I did, I was glad to learn that it wasn't done intentionally but rather it was due to system glitches, and anyway, I missed some of you guys a lot. I was sorry not to be able to give Jack a good send-off. If you are lingering, Jack, you were a prince.

As the British say, Best regards,

Polly

Lovely to see you again Polly

Hey guest Polly

I understand the mooning part as I'm kind of a clothes light computer operator.
Now there's a disturbing picture. May explain why some folks feel the need to shower after reading one of my postings.

Kensho menthol achievements means that my spiritual maturity can be measured by me having to invent rules for myself like..
OK.. If I don't spend any more time on the OBC connect than I spend formally meditating each day..then this OBC connect obsession might be manageable... in a punitive kind of way.

but in spite of this, the stretch it's given to my practise has made me grateful to all the voices on the OBC connect.

I think of the OBC as a mechanism that screens out those who don't fit into the OBC holes. This leaves them willfully blind & ineffective in dealing with anything outside of their own self promotion.
I don't want the OBC connect to fall into the same trap.

I am glad to hear your voice again.

Cheers

Same from me, Polly, it's great to see you here again.

Yes, that "Guest" thing is annoying, I wish the system didn't automatically erase people's names when their registration is canceled. We'll research it -- maybe there's an alternative.

Just a note on PMs, and this may not apply in your case, but if someone sends you a PM and then deletes it from their "Outbox" before you open it, it won't show up in your Inbox. Several times I've gotten messages about a PM, then logged in to find no new messages waiting.

Thank you for letting us know the above. I'm not clear, either, how Rev. Haryo could have overlooked the good things you wrote about the monk in question. We didn't miss it here.

From your post I've gotten my good reminder for the week, something to put on a sticky note and read throughout the day: Keep trusting ourselves. And kick the rest to the kerb.

L.

Hi Polly nice to have you back. Yeah some of us can be a bit over the top occasionally but we've got years of bottled up angst to blow off. Me I'm never over the top, over the hill maybe! It seems that the great Forumotion Roshi being unforgiving of anyone with the temerity to criticise let alone leave rather than recognising your clear spiritual achievements as Guest returning to Host decided to demote you to just plain Guest, myself I'm just Lost in Lost.

Hi Polly,
Hope you come here as frequently or infrequently as you like. It's good to hear you either way. I've mentioned the kensho thing in recent posts because of a concern that spiritual achievement can too easily translate into power within an organizational context. This, I'm sure is not limited to the OBC. Still, it is a concern that's best not left unsaid I think.

It seems you've bumped up against a wall at the OBC that many of us have: when you disagree and are upset, you are wrong. No ambiguity, no give and take, no interest in why you feel as you do. You are wrong. Sorry you hit that wall. It can be very painful and unsettling. It can also be painful when you know you can't go back. I'm sorry your in that place now, but it can pass over time if you allow it too. You may find that you are not 100% in the right, but if the circumstances are such that you have to agree to be 100% in the wrong, there's not much resolution you can get by discussing things with the OBC. Like I say, it can be painful.

Hi back to all of you,

Henry, I just read the flow of conversation between you and Chisan and Howard today and I think you are all essentially saying the same thing I was saying and thinking. I may not have been very clear; it's the rating of kensho's and speculations regarding them that I find weird, and it sounds like you all do too. Just each taking it from different angles.

I will "come out" and be very non-PC for Buddhists and say that I have a very firm belief in a personal as well as an incomprehensible and limitless God. So I look at all spiritual experiences as gifts, grace, all well beyond anything I could earn or merit. You put yourself in the path of the hurricane and if it lifts you up, it does, and you can be grateful and that's all. I know that the "G" word is really bad in the eyes of many, but it sure does eliminate the "concern that spiritual achievement translate into power within the organizational context", as you say. You just can't take any credit. That's one of the things I have allowed myself to re-claim in these past weeks. My belief in God.

Can we still be friends?

Polly

Yes we can

Absolutely.

Hi Polly,

I'm so glad you're back!!!

Affectionately,
mokuan

I can't put much value on [...] how many and how deep
someone's kenshos were. Who cares? If the OBC gives their members
grades on kenshos then it has lost all contact with true spiritual
pursuit, and if members of the OBC Connect do it, I would say the same
of them. A person's spiritual life is internal, and one's revelations,
blessings, grace, however you want to put it, should be in my opinion,
kept fairly private. Anyone who speculates on the spiritual maturity of
another is missing the point. Anyone who announces their spiritual
maturity surely has very little of it. We need to nurture our own
spiritual inner life, help those who want and need our help, and the
rest is none of our business. That's my call, and I'm sticking to it.

Polly, I have a hunch that you're my kindred soul!

Otherwise, it's a pity you fell off that horse, even though even falling off a horse may be useful. My Dad fell off one, broke his hip, and got out of military service on account of that. I've never ridden a horse; I think if I tried, the poor horse would either freak out thinking it was Queen Victoria, or get a massive kensho, putting all the OBC monks to shame. For the latter possibility, I should try.
Hugz, Oli

Dear Ol'ga,

Yep, my first thought of you was that you would make a great friend.

Oddly enough, my daughter spent a year in Nitra, so I know something of the new and improved Slovakia. It must have been much different when you were there.
Again, glad you've arrived on the forum.

Polly

My friend Polly,
How's Yogi? Do let us know.
As to Nitra, I've been there a few times. I remember once, on a school trip. Dad gave me some pocket money (12 crowns exactly! He made 900 a month), and I brought it all back. I knew how poor we were and was very virtuous. Being virtuous is not all that great - those people are so brittle, I think. Now I am not virtuous at all, perhaps swang too far to the other side, no brittleness at all, just marshmallow softness. Oh well.
As to God: if faith in him is not PC in Buddhism, so much the worse for Buddhism. Why could there not be a being who knows everything, if there is me and you and others, who know but a little, and who are distinct enough, separate enough, to correspond with each other on OBCConnect?
Hugz,
Oli

Hey Oli,

Yogi is still with us though pretty slow and depressed. The vets are confused about his diagnoses, but we have cleared up pancreatitis and some infections (I hope), so it may boil down to just diabetes to work with now. Kind of you to ask about the poor lad.

Yeah, my daughter said the people were pretty cold in Slovakia. Her host family gave her a bed and meals but no other interaction, she was free to range at will so she spent most of her senior year in bars. However, she came back a lot stronger and more self-reliant than I ever thought she would be.

So refreshing to hear you speak about God. I was raised Christian Scientist, whose definition of God (yep, they have a definition) does not include any personal aspect. "Like the principle of mathematics." I refused church at a young age, telling my parents that they were limiting God and that I thought that was a mistake. I still do. No limits from my tiny mind, and certainly no definitions. To me that sort of concern is up there with arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. When I was older I converted my parents to Raga Yoga, which was cool. I realize that I may offend or elicit scorn from some but for me one of the best things about OBC was the attitude about God, "The Eternal". I would have walked away immediately if that hadn't been part of it. But as I've said before, I'm the devotion type and I could no more change that than I could my sexual orientation. There is room for us all, in my book.

Time for bed. I have a new book about the "perils and pitfalls of working with a spiritual teacher" to peruse.

All the best,
Polly

Hi Polly,
I'm sorry to hear that your daughter found Slovaks rather cold. Maybe she had bad luck...or maybe they are rather cold. I heard also the opposite from some visitors to Slovakia, but I can't really judge it. It takes all kinds to make the world, I guess. I left mainly because of the regime but even aside from that, it's hard to tell how I would have fitted in. Canada suits me well.
About God. I do at times wonder if he exists, simply because there is no proof. But I do need God, just to clear my mind. I picture him as someone who knows everything, who is complete, who has no biases, who has no axe to grind. So I take refuge in him that way. I also ask for his help when in trouble, and thank him frequently. When I first travelled to England from Europe - Ostend to Dover by boat - there was an elderly English couple, who taught me how to combat sea-sickness: stare at the horizon. So that's what God is to me. He is also a buddy, and so I can tell him about things I'd just messed up etc, - and can tell him off at times, too. I have a friend (a Slovak woman, what else), who once felt that God was treating her badly, she had had enough, and threatened him to kick his [Admin delete]. Literally.
Well, if someone does not like my ideas of God, in my own head, my own life - tough luck! [Admin edit]
As to Roshi's Eternal. She was really partly Christian, even though she didn't tolerate Christianity in us.
Oli