So much spiritual hucksterism...so little time...

I'm a busy guy of late, what with work, family, and the various practices in which I'm engaged.  So, here's a few quick pointers on the absurdity I read nowadays...

• Chogyam Trungpa might have been skilled in various ways,  but a guy you should drop everything for? I think not.  Or at least stop pretending  "enlightenment" thing (at least such as "was" his)  is any more than being really really good at reversi or something.
• Scientology? Geez, in this  day and age?  The very word should connote "people meat grinder."
• I'm still flabbergasted that folks "follow" Dennis Merzel. He has varying levels of "closeness" with him, that - guess what? - depend on how much you're willing to fork over every month.  And all of them, all of them, will help you "awaken the world" and "raise global consciousness." Wow! what -a- bargain! 
• And, obviously somebody, or at least one Maurice Shonen Knegtel,  in the "Big" "Mind"  "sect" (group? cult?) decided that they had to put some masking tape on "Big" "Mind" to try to attach it to  Zen/Chan.  You can imagine why. 

Of course we Mahayana Buddhists vow to save, or help  all sentient beings ourselves, in the sense of the transcendence of suffering.  But in no way is that a function of how much we can pay nor how much abuse we're willing to take, or whether we check our brains at the door when we go for some sort of teaching.  

Also don't believe everything Maurice Shonen Knegtel wrote there at that link, as if I had to write that.  Especially this part is risible:

Teaching, practice and realization took place in everyday activity, like farming, walking through the mountains, drinking tea, cleaning, or just talking. Probably they did not sit that much in formal zazen, and the early Masters rarely talk about sitting practice. Zen was not yet formalized with rituals and ceremonial practices, as it was later in Sung China (Tenth to Fourteenth Century A.D.), Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Early Chan was a living religion, not dependent on forms like teisho (formal teaching), zazen (formal sitting) or daisan (formal interview). Enlightenment was found and expressed in daily activities. And the way of teaching of the old Masters was very similar to that of Gautama the Buddha. Students were led to a place where they are one with the Dharma and express it. Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind process offers the same living religion in a playful game of giving voice to whatever dharma is coming up and by skillfully practicing the same ‘wonder of teaching’ as Gautama the Buddha and early Chan Masters did. 

 It's risible because its Orientalism and revisionism just oozes right through every word, including the instances of "a" and "the."  That Lin Chi didn't depend on his teishos - even if they weren't called that - is absurd.  What the hell does Shonen think he was doing when he ascended the high seat? He wasn't thinking "Gee, this is just like what 'Big' 'Mind" is going to be in a thousand some-odd years." 

And for Void sakes, "Big" "Mind" isn't an "everyday" activity!   There's 8.6% unemployment! Their everyday activity, I assure you, isn't mucking around with "voices."  The "everyday" activity of the working monastics (and laity) consisted of, you know,  activities performed every day. No special process or mind games were needed, playful or not.

These guys have completely forgotten, it seems, what it is to be ordinary.  And, it seems, Shonen might have confused the Dharma with a "conflict of interest," the conflict of interest being his personal investment of time and energy and effort, and I'd bet, gelt, into the Merzel Thing, and, of course, the practice of the Dharma.

All right.  Enough of my rant for today.