This article is about social sciences, but very relevant to spiritual writings. My teacher in Tibetan Buddhism was very plain-spoken, and often translated even names of Enlightened Beings into English. Thus, Manjushri (Skt.) aka Jampel Yang (Tib.) becomes “Gentle Voice,” just the way Tibetan translated Sanskrit to their own language. The point is to enlighten (and Enlighten), not to mystify. I feel discouraged when people write about the teachings and throw tons of Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese or Japanese out there. Just pretend we are not linguistic scholars, m’kay? It might be technically correct, but do these writers have any experience or realization of what they are talking about? I doubt it, if they can’t explain in their own English words.
Have You Fallen Victim to the Guru Effect? | Big Think
Four years ago a paper by Dan Sperber published in the Review of Philosophy and Psychology coined the term: The Guru Effect – the tendency for people to “judge profound what they have failed to grasp.” The paper examines how self-professed Gurus have a knack for inspiring devotion through speaking …
Where I’m at now is that you can get the benefits of mindfulness without the cultural underpinnings. As I wrote elsewhere, ancient Eastern teachings are pretty wonderful, they did a lot for me personally, but they suffer from an underpinning of authoritarianism, which makes sense, since there was always someone in charge of you in those days. I believe that practice groups should be run like AA meetings, not worship of a person, living or dead. Is that too materialist? Sorry, material is mostly what we have to work with. I just want you to be healthier and happier. If you reach enlightenment along the way, cool! I’m not going to count on it.
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