Talk:Kalachakra
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Kalachakra was a good article, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Delisted version: August 8, 2006 |
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[edit] why disputed?
I would be very curious to know who and why this article is made disputed? rudy
- As far as I know it's not. Sylvain1972 19:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
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- I have removed the dispute/neutrality tag. If there is an actual dispute, please ARTICULATE IT on this talk page, THEN replace the template. Thank you. Zero sharp (talk) 22:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] Jonang
I've deleted the latest edits of "Geir Smith," the self-proclaimed authority. They were ungrammatical and somewhat incoherent, and didn't add anything to the article that isn't better left to the "Jonang" entry. Sylvain1972 15:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
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- I've further deleted some of Geir Smith's untrue additions and irrelavent passages. The Dorje Shugden has nothing to do with the Kalachakra and has no place in this article. Regarding Taranatha, he is not the father of Kalachakra, as this article makes clear. While he important in the history, yes, there are many others who preceededed him and contemporaries of equal importance, and this is already clearly explained in the article. Sylvain1972 19:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Delisted GA
It seems that this article did not go through the GA nomination process. Looking at the article as is, it fails on criteria 2 in that it does not cite any sources. Most Good Articles use inline citations. I would recommend that this be fixed and submit the article through the nomination process. --RelHistBuff 15:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Some explanation from the Dalai Lama
can be found here [1].
- Austerlitz -- 88.75.73.41 (talk) 21:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
"The prophecy of the Shambhala war represents the triumph of the human race over religious militarism and materialistic reification and/or nihilism. The Kalachakra Tantra offers a vision of the elevation of the human spirit beyond these forces. It envisions a uniting of humanity into a single "vajra" race, through the acknowledgement that each and every being possesses the same essence or "buddha nature", beyond any conceptual notion of a "self" that is based on cultural, ethnic, and emotional affiliations, and thus beyond historical and religious enmities."
Who says so? Sounds like propaganda. Anyway, the source should be cited.
- Austerlitz -- 88.72.7.43 (talk) 06:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
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- Agreed a source is needed, but this sounds like just the basic view of vajrayana buddhism to me and not particularly controversial aside from the military language. Though it's a little off, because once one realizes the vajra body one also realizes the inseparability of all beings. So not so much that they possess the same essence (that idea of possession implies truly established existence) but more that one realizes buddha nature was all there really was to begin with. Something like that. - Owlmonkey (talk) 11:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
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- I have to think about this.
Right now I want to quote a remark from wikisite Chakravartin: "The cakravartin in Buddhism came to be considered the secular counterpart of a Buddha."
- Austerlitz -- 88.75.87.35 (talk) 11:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
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- In some renderings of the story of the Life of the Buddha, it was prophesized when he was born that he would grow up to either be a Buddha or a Chakravartin. His father, the Shakya king, only wanted the latter and attempted to raise him in such a way that he would become a secular ruler. But the attempt failed. No idea though if that concept of chakravartin pre-dates Buddhism or was an interpretation added later, after the fact. The concept of a benevolent monarch is perhaps universal though? - Owlmonkey (talk) 11:13, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
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- p.s. you should really create an a wikipedia account if you don't already have one, Austerlitz, since you're making so many edits. Makes it easier to see who is doing what in the edit histories and for people to contact you / comment. Otherwise leaving comments on IP address talk pages is unreliable. Best Regards. -Owlmonkey (talk) 11:16, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
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What about the connection between Maitreya and the Chakravartin? Is Kalachakra in between?
- Austerlitz -- 88.75.77.242 (talk) 10:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
- There is no direct connection at all as far as I ever heard. rudy (talk) 11:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Reading the following remark from wikisite Chakravartin "The cakravartin in Buddhism came to be considered the secular counterpart of a Buddha." I've come to think that there must be a connection. There is no source cited for that so it must be sort of "common knowledge". Anyway, counterpart can mean equivalent as well as complement, but for sure it means that there is a connection between the two of them.
- Austerlitz -- 88.75.70.84 (talk) 10:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
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- I've never seen anything specifically related between maitreya and kalachakra. I don't see maitreya much in the tantras generally though my scholarship is terrible. i've generally seen maitreya in mahayana contexts. Let me slip into some *original research* here for a moment, please excuse the digression from things encyclopedic: The chakravartin usage is *really* interesting to me in the kalachakra and other places. we mostly think of buddhism as being fairly renunciant, humble monks and what not. mahayana sutras opened that up a lot, so then lay people have more equal footing. but then in the tantric traditions we see more of these analogies of rulership and kingship used. even abhisheka used as initiation is traditionally a coronation ceremony. so you're crowned a king in tantra. it's quite a shift, but really in line with the uttaratantra view that we are all buddhas essentially, we are all chakravartins, we just *think* we're not. we're confused. we're these wonderful, brilliant, luminous beings who for some inexplicable reason are confused into thinking we're just joe smith or whomever. So the tantra is pointing toward that: that our essential nature is noble, brilliant, benevolent and that we can be complete rulers of our phenomenal experience of dharmata or tathata. We can take our seat on the thrown of simplicity, the throne of a stable mind, and then like the buddha when the armies of mara hurl arrows at us (meaning: the confusion of mind throws conceptual solidification at us and afflictive emotions) but we'll never lose our seat, we'll never forget that we really are the ruler of our phenomenal experience. So it's perfectly reasonable that we've had abhisheka - that we've been crowned - because we always were the ruler of our personal phenomenal experience. No one else ever was or could be really. Something like that... OK, *original research* is over. Thank you for the purveyance. - Owlmonkey (talk) 18:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
- Abisheka in vajrayana is a permission to practice, to connect it to crowning a king sounds a bit silly in this context in my opinion... By the way, in most vajrayana schools one does not say that we are Buddhas, instead, we all have the potential to become a Buddha. Our essential nature (tathagatagarba) is this potential.rudy (talk) 00:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
- Well the four part abhisheka process was explained to me as a coronation ceremony, first you wash, get dressed, then get a scepter to rule, then learn how to rule. Not the subject of this article particularly, but I also recall reading the format of the ceremony was based on the coronations of Indian kings. I'll have to hunt for that reference though, would be good to discuss on the abhisheka page if I can find that. If you google "abhisheka coronation" you'll find a few related discussions. The view of buddha nature though is quite wonderful to discuss. There does seem to be different takes on whether tathagatagarba is a potential seed or matrix or if it is fully present and established already, depending upon the school as far as I can tell. Might depend upon which turning you find definitive, the second or the third turning as categorized by tibetan schools. I studied some with Khenpo Gawang of Namdroling Monastery and he presented to us how the schools differed in this way. But that some of the vajrayana schools take the view (though it's just for the purpose of practice, not when analyzing for ultimacy) that the tathagatagarba is fully established already. Hence the view that we're already manjushri or whomever who is merely mistaken that we're joe smith. All this is analogy though, not really an assertion of the ultimate. it wouldn't stand valid cognition that analysis for the ultimate, in other words. But at least in his nyingma lineage that seems to be used as a way of contemplating view. and they consider the view that tathagatagarba as mere potential or seed as a lower view. - Owlmonkey (talk) 05:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
- Found one interesting book description for the abhisheka of vajrayogini, in the "heart of the buddha" by chogyam trungpa. he describes it as the coronation of a prince or princess instead of as a king or queen. so perhaps he's implying both the students need to progress and their primordial purity simultaneously. It's in chapter 7 of that book "stages of the path". He also details somewhat each stage of the abhisheka and what it means, in the kagyu tradition at least.- Owlmonkey (talk) 06:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
- Abisheka in vajrayana is a permission to practice, to connect it to crowning a king sounds a bit silly in this context in my opinion... By the way, in most vajrayana schools one does not say that we are Buddhas, instead, we all have the potential to become a Buddha. Our essential nature (tathagatagarba) is this potential.rudy (talk) 00:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
- I've never seen anything specifically related between maitreya and kalachakra. I don't see maitreya much in the tantras generally though my scholarship is terrible. i've generally seen maitreya in mahayana contexts. Let me slip into some *original research* here for a moment, please excuse the digression from things encyclopedic: The chakravartin usage is *really* interesting to me in the kalachakra and other places. we mostly think of buddhism as being fairly renunciant, humble monks and what not. mahayana sutras opened that up a lot, so then lay people have more equal footing. but then in the tantric traditions we see more of these analogies of rulership and kingship used. even abhisheka used as initiation is traditionally a coronation ceremony. so you're crowned a king in tantra. it's quite a shift, but really in line with the uttaratantra view that we are all buddhas essentially, we are all chakravartins, we just *think* we're not. we're confused. we're these wonderful, brilliant, luminous beings who for some inexplicable reason are confused into thinking we're just joe smith or whomever. So the tantra is pointing toward that: that our essential nature is noble, brilliant, benevolent and that we can be complete rulers of our phenomenal experience of dharmata or tathata. We can take our seat on the thrown of simplicity, the throne of a stable mind, and then like the buddha when the armies of mara hurl arrows at us (meaning: the confusion of mind throws conceptual solidification at us and afflictive emotions) but we'll never lose our seat, we'll never forget that we really are the ruler of our phenomenal experience. So it's perfectly reasonable that we've had abhisheka - that we've been crowned - because we always were the ruler of our personal phenomenal experience. No one else ever was or could be really. Something like that... OK, *original research* is over. Thank you for the purveyance. - Owlmonkey (talk) 18:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] "Weird sentence"
This one: "Some doubt: do the ghosts being evoked know the realm of symbolism?" Why do you think so?
- Austerlitz -- 88.72.29.72 (talk) 10:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Bias
The Controversy section establishes in the first sentence the fact that there is criticism of the Kalachakra, but the writer failed to elaborate on these criticisms, and instead used the entire section to dispute the criticisms in a highly subjective language. Some examples:
"Upon close inspection, however, it is clear that the Buddha was not preaching against any particular tradition..." The article is compromised throughout with language of this nature. "Upon close inspection" by whom? "It is clear" to whom? The fact that criticism of the Kalachakra exists at all puts this whole line of reasoning into question.
"It could not be the intention of the Buddha to advocate a religious war..." The author can read the mind of the Buddha?
The whole section is essentially a subjective defense of the supposed non-violent nature of Tibetan Buddhist tradition as expressed through the Kalachakra. This section needs to be re-written with an elaboration of the critiques of the Kalachakra, and if there are opposing viewpoints to these critiques, they should be written in a much more objective tone.
For those writers looking for source material for this article, here is a thorough critique of the Kalachakra and its place in Buddhist culture: The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Index.htm Melanaigis (talk) 01:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
This link offers some very specific critiques of the violent doomsday prophecies of the Kalachakra: http://www.trimondi.de/EN/deba03.html Melanaigis (talk) 02:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
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- The trimondi.de web site is a questionable source per WP:V, WP:RS and WP:REDFLAG in my opinion. But to your specific points, I agree the language sounds too apologetic. Attribution of views would definitely help in that section to avoid sounding like definitive fact (e.g. "It could not be the intention of the Buddha") though I happen to agree with the points made. Tantra is rooted in the Mahayana so iconography of dharmapalas, hook knives, skulls, etc. is not to be confused with advocating outward aggression. And we don't have to read the mind of the Buddha, the pali canon is specific I believe about not harming others even when one's own life is threatened. Which is not to say that all followers adhere to that tenet. History readily says otherwise. But we can discuss the tenet apart from what people who call themselves Buddhist have done historically. - Owlmonkey (talk) 23:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Not sure if I included all of your concerns, but I attempted to elaborate both on the specific iconography in the deity practice of Kalachakra and also in attributing the views of non-violence. The Beers quote about the symbolism of weaponry in tantra seems worth including because the issue at hand is how can these textual references to war and violence be non-violent, yet we see that kind of symbolism and reference all over the vajrayana - with implements of each dharmapalas to wrathful or semi-wrathful yidam deity in the tantras. Many are just covered in severed body parts for example. So it's a general issue not just specific to this tantra, but given the Shambhala war prophesy all the more important to discuss here. I made significant changes however to that section: comments and suggestions and critiques are quite welcome. I'll remove the POV tag though if there is no further discussion. - Owlmonkey (talk) 00:16, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Future Initiations?
When / where will the next ones be? (By the Dalai Lama, I mean.) --Frank —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.60.55.9 (talk) 06:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
- You can find his history of giving the initiation here and his upcoming schedule here. Doesn't look like there is one scheduled. You might write his secretary to ask. - Owlmonkey (talk) 07:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
