http://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=438…
Namdrol:
A common example is a seal and its impression.
transmission means a teacher speaks, in words and similes
according to his realization. You actively listen and understand.
That is transmission. This why, for example, at the end of
transmitting vows, the officiating upadhyaya asks you “Are you
happy”? This means, “did you really participate in this ritual of
transmitting the precepts?”
This is all there is to transmission. It cannot be gained from a
book. It must be gained from another living, breathing human
being.
Will & adinatha:
If you have ever been in presence of someone you did not know at
all, yet you were irritated or inspired far beyond anything said by
them; that is their aura affecting yours. Did you think all those
paintings with discs of light around buddhas & bodhisattvas are
just artistic flourishes? The best proof is being in the silent
atmosphere of someone and recalling later that one’s racing,
worrisome mind was calmed.
Yes. This is right. Part of transmission of ultimate realization
involves this.
Namdrol:
There is no magical “transmission” fairy dust.
PadmaVonSamba & Namdrol:
So, are you saying that anyone who ever went to any sort of
teaching or public talk by a lama received a transmission?
Yes. Listening to a recording however has no transmission.
Namdrol:
No. Recorded words are not the same. They are a recording of an
act of speech, but not the act of speech itself. Teaching and
bestowing transmission are acts.
The words recorded are divorced from the act of speech. They are
relics, not alive.
It is the act of speaking and the act of listening happening
together at the same time that constitutes a transmission.
Astus wrote:
[If I read the 5 precepts and keep them is not the same if I hear
and then keep them – no reason why.
Namdrol:
Do you think that you can just decide to a be bhiḳsu, shave your
head, put on robes, and that is sufficient. Do you think you can be
a monk or a nun without being ordained?
You have to receive them (precepts) from someone who holds those
precepts. You cannot take them on your own. Keeping the five
precepts does not have the force of the vows unless they are
received according to the rite of either an upasaka, shramanera or
bhikṣu.
Why is so? It is so because the Buddha set the system up. It is
true that the ordination of monks evolved from a simple declaration
“Now you are bhikṣus” to an elaborate rite of bestowing the vows
with a quorum of monks and so on during the Buddha’s lifetime.
Differences in vinayas arose because monks were being ordained by
senior Arhats hundreds of miles from where the Buddha was living
and differences crept into the ritual for bestowing vows. But the
key point is that one must receive the vows from someone who holds
them. You cannot receive pratimoksha vows from a video, not can you
take them on your own. All vows come from the Buddha. If you want
vows, you must take them from a Buddhist who holds them.
The exception to this is bodhisattva vows (in the madhyamaka
system). In the Madhyamaka system, if there is no preceptor
available to grant bodhisattva vows, one may take them through a
visualization.
Otherwise, all Pratimoksha vows and Vajrayāna vows must be
received from a preceptor or guru, each according to its own proper
rite.
Vajrayāna teachings may only be given to people who hold
Vajrayāna vows. This is why the first portion of any empowerment is
conferral of the basic Vajrayāna vows; with more vows being
conferred with each successive level of empowerment. In this
context, it is like preparing a field before you plant.
Transmission is a living thing, not something one can receive
from relic.
Sherab criticized the seal and impression. But he/she does not
understand a critical point—thinking that one can receive
transmission from a recording is like imagining that a rubbing done
of a an impression is equivalent to act of stamping an impression
with a seal. In this case, the problem is that there is no
transmission since there is only one person involved i.e. the
person playing the recording. Transmission requires two people, a
person giving transmission and a person receiving transmission.
They must somehow be related to each other through the act of
delivering the substance of transmission which is act of
communication by a speaker to a hearer via sounds, words and
symbols at minimum. In Vajrayāna there is are further experiential
transmissions which come about when the teacher deliberately
induces specific experiences in a student. But again, it is through
sound, words, and symbols. Taste, sight, touch, etc., these
experiences are symbols.
So in summary, Astus, transmissions is nothing mystical, but it
does require two parties who are engaged in an the act of
transmission, one giving, the other receiving,at the same time.
Without this, there is no transmission.
N