Tag: Tulku

Unacceptable Hypotheses

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

How we view and to an extent assimilate our notion of world is underpinned by a number of hypotheses which we may deem fact or gospel. Counter hypotheses are therefore cognitively unacceptable. This is because they can literally change our world and view thereof. Different hypotheses can upset the mundane power balance. And we cannot allow that can we.

For a long time, according to history, mankind imagined a flat Earth with earth at the centre of all things heavenly. Others suggested a heliocentric solar system and a quasi-spherical planet. Such views were considered heretic and punishable. For a long time the hypotheses of heliocentricity and orb-like planet were totally unacceptable especially to those in power, in the church. The infallibility of a human pope kept bums on seat and pennies on the collection plate. The infallibility of the pope was deemed factual and not hypothetical. It was the sort of “fact” that was enforced at the end of a blade or a noose.

Human history is littered with old hypotheses which have been used as the reason for slaughter. Hypotheses can be used to justify blood and murder.

The implications of a spherical globe are significantly different from a flat “2d” world. There is no edge off of which to sail. Without a round planet we would not have satellite TV nor surveillance satellites. A flat earth would be bad for NSA and CIA. The hypothesis of a quasi-spherical planet is game-changing in its implications.

An example of a hypothesis which is unacceptable to some is that Jesus was and is the long promised biblical messiah, the saviour. A significant population in the world find such a hypothesis unacceptable. No rabbi could accept this hypothesis and others see him more as a significant prophet. Were a rabbi to accept such a hypothesis it would radically change the assimilation of world and the recounting and recollection of history. You can argue that there is a vested interest not to accept such a hypothesis.

Some hypothesis cannot therefore be accepted because the implication of accepting them is too vast, it changes far too much.

Scientific causality and locality was a notion of Newtonian mechanics. Quantum entanglement kind of fucked with this idea and people like Einstein found this a swede masher and difficult to accept. Nowadays there is a burgeoning quantum aspect to science, business and technology.  

One could argue that there is precedent for old, dated hypotheses giving way to newer more widely applicable ones. Things of significant implication always face resistance and slow uptake.

I like the idea of a how a change in hypothesis can fundamentally and significantly alter how a world is and has been assimilated. A benign example of this is when adopted children find out they have been adopted and search out the backstory. The world is turned upside down for a while, perhaps permanently. Modern DNA testing has scuppered many a dubious narrative about parenthood. The hypothesis that Bob was dad to Alice was incorrect, it was Sergei in reality.

A while back somebody insisted that I was a so-called Man of Action and for many years dozens of people interacted with me on the basis of that hypothesis. It underpinned their assimilation of our interaction. It was a hypothesis which may not have been well founded. People might struggle to re-assimilate the world and the nature of interaction given an alternate notion.

Hypothesis can be a close relative of assumption. The working assumption here in France is that I am “anglais”. It is the first “hypothesis”. It is pretty easy to change intellectual understanding of this but still people behave towards me as if I have the same orientation as an English. Although the hypothesis has changed its latent implementation remains.

Based on various visions and dreams I have had one can draw up at least two different hypothetical explanations. These might be radically different in implication both locally for me and more globally.

The simplest explanation is that the nocturnal dreams and waking visons are a form of hallucinatory psychosis. I am off  my trolley and provided that I don’t cause any discomfort / break laws there is no need to have me locked up in a psychiatric unit. I am not a threat to anyone and by and large understand my day to day reality such a taxes and medical appointments. Although socially isolated I am not dangerous to myself or others. This is a facile hypothesis with only a very local implication. It does not impinge outside of our immediate geo-location.

Another interpretation is that some of the dreams are to do with previous incarnations of mine. If we accept this as a hypothesis then we can assimilate an explanatory narrative which has me having several Buddhist flavoured lives etc. As this stands it  has no wide implication. It is the sort of thing someone well into their cups might claim down the local boozer. No drama. Just another hippy-trippy fruitcake believing something which cannot be proved nor directly unequivocally disproved. Disproof is implied from lack of proof. If however this points at a tulku incarnation of a high lama, this has wide implication in at least one context. Some would struggle to accept this as a hypothesis specifically because of the way they see me and have behaved towards me. It would need a rewrite of life narrative.

This points at an obvious. Hypothesis can not ever be completely separated from context; they are nearly always highly context specific.

In 2009 I had a “conversation” early one morning walking around a wood near Tring. In that I was told that I was a very close disciple of Buddha, Siddartha. Implied that I had been a contemporary of him and spent time with him. The default hypothesis of psychotic hallucination or schizophrenic voice hearing explains this easily.

To accept the “conversation” as factual or hypothetically correct would be a push for some, particularly those who have made my acquaintance.

In 2011 I had a dream which pointed at Bakula one of Buddha’s closet disciples, a scholar who came late to the path according to text. He is named as arhat in scripture and hagiography has him as an enlightened being. I am less convinced that enlightenment of a disciple happens in a single lifetime just from hanging out with the Siddhartha dude. In certain circumstances he is revered as a kind of Buddhist “saint”. Prior to the dream I had no conscious memory of having heard the name Bakula.

The facile invocation of grandiose psychotic dreaming is easily made. Maybe I want to be important subconsciously and made up a story to make me significant.

For me to accept it as hypothetically possible is not tricky. For others it may be harder. For example what does one do with that? How does one treat a reincarnated person who actually met and hung with Siddartha? What is the precedent? What is the protocol?

Quickly such a hypothesis becomes cognitively unacceptable. It cannot be proven true and it would take more evidence than Mulder and Scully could ever furnish for it to be believed, no matter how much we may want to believe. I’ll suggest that there may be many hypotheses which describe an aspect of reality which are totally unacceptable. These hypotheses may be before their time. In time they may become less unacceptable until such time as people are ready to believe them.

Careful if you believe, you might fall off the edge of your world…

Big Cheeses and Kudos

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I’ll speculate that Herr Trump sees himself as a big cheese and wants people to kiss his ring. The orange don, Donald, has a big army, navy and air force. I doubt anyone looks forward with unbridled glee at the notion of a public meeting with him. These meetings are a necessary evil. He is not a pleasant man. In societal terms he is a high kudos being, though some may not wish to brag about their associations with him. He is not universally good PR. He can be bad for business. He has a lot of power.

Kudos is context specific. To a MAGA wannabe an endorsement from the “don” is manna from heaven.

We are watching recorded University Challenges on YouTube. Quite often there are questions on Nobel Prizes and Laureates. These prizes are high kudos and should you win one it will boost an academic salary and secure your job. Universities like the kudos of bragging about Nobel Laureates.

“Look at us we are special!”

Even though I was recently incarnated as a scientist I struggle to recall who won, with whom and for what. I have even met a few of these winners.

According to Professor Google there are / have been around one thousand Nobel Laureates. This means that England football captains are less common and world cup winning England football captains a positive rarity. In some {most} contexts football is more important and more significant than someone boffinacious. Aside from a few like Einstein, people know the faces of Beckham and Lineker better.

Lhamo Thondup the Tibetan tulku also known as Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso or H.H. Dalai Lama is one of only 14 reincarnations. To many in the world he is a high kudos being and his face is easily recognised. He has met Bush, Obama, Cameron and Merkel inter alia. It is good PR to be seen in his presence. He is a spiritual big cheese. He gets invites.

People can speak in awe of people like Friedrich Nietzsche. You must be brainy to read him. Strangely he played a big part in my interest in Buddhism

“Goodreads” attributes the following quotations to Nietzsche.

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“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.”

“Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions.”


― Friedrich Nietzsche

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In academic circles it is more accepted to quote him than Padmasambhava. The latter is a very high kudos figure in Tibetan Buddhism, a supposed Nirmanakaya of Buddha.

Many big cheese are also legends in their own lunchtimes, others are not, they are humbler than that. In the UK, research assessment exercises have sought to measure peer esteem or kudos. This is such a subjective thing and wholly non scientific yet those keen to get research grants played along with something close to a convenient heresy.

The ascribing of kudos is a very personal and hence subjective thing too. We have the phenomenon of fans who attach much kudos to their heroines or heroes. They may even pay for used clothing or bath water. Kudos is attached to corporeal relics of saints and Buddhas. The essence which may have once imbued the relic is long departed. Perhaps saints have way more than eight fingers and two thumbs so everyone can get a relic.

Despite the positional power which kudos affords in a socio-political sense it is not real. You cannot measure it with a laser and a detector. When you die you can’t take it with you.

People can make huge faux pas dancing upon the minefield of kudos. Kudos is another word for something we desire in a social-construct sense. We may seek recognition or affirmation from the herd, the shoal. Even if we are awarded with a measurable trinket, kudos is impermanent. One can fall from grace off one’s glittery platform shoes like Gary did. A fall from the lofty heights of kudos is difficult to bear.

We may hold things important which others do not. We may fail to attach importance to something revered by others. We may be arrogant in our notions of what is significant and to which we ascribe our personal kudos.

Trying saying kudos, kudos, over and over!! Very quickly is starts to sound silly.

Some people want to become important, significant big cheeses. Some imagine they already are. Many have a sense of grandiose entitlement.

Just as some want to be top dog others want to be a big cheese.

“If you thought $30 for a pound of blue cheese was expensive, wait till you hear how much this Spanish blue cheese just sold for.

Clocking in at $6,682 per pound, a wheel of Cabrales blue cheese from northern Spain earned the title of the world’s most expensive cheese after a 2.2 kg (4.85 lb) wheel was sold at auction for €30,000 ($32,408.10).

The auction took place at the 51st annual Cabrales Cheese Competition held in the Principality of Asturias. Bidding started at €3,000 and quickly rose as passionate turophiles battled for the right to own the first-place cheese.

In the end, restauranteur Iván Suárez won the prized wheel. Suárez told Spanish news outlet EFE that “the passion for the land” and “recognizing the work of all the cheesemakers” made him buy the cheese.”

New Record for World’s Most Expensive Cheese Josie Krogh | August 29, 2023

Being a Part of a Wider Story

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We all have stories about our lives which we tell to others, we have the so-called curriculum vitae which we use to gain {or otherwise} employment. More often than not we may be bigged-up in our own version of our events, our narrative assimilation. Rarely do we cast ourselves villain.  In our stories there are other people, other cast members, upon whom we may apportion blame. The “baddies” are not us or ours. There is propaganda and PR about our role in the world. To imagine that we recollect and then retell with 100% accuracy is delusional. Our perception is not omniscient and our bias remains. Our stories contain fiction and are skewed.

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From time to time events can happen which can get us to completely re-evaluate our lives and the events therein. Our erstwhile self-diagnosed angelic roles may be called into question. How we see someone can change dramatically and that can unpick our previous narratives.

I can envisage this story, told piecemeal in the blog, being part of a much wider picture. One that could attract media attention and upend many things. For example, were I to be outed as a tulku then everyone who has ever interacted with me might change their story. There may be a few lines in a newspaper and even a wiki page. People could have an interesting snippet to add to conversation over dinner. Some might view an incarnation as a science academic interesting, if only for a fleeting moment. Before they watch the next TikTok.

“When I knew him, he was a right piss artist…Tsk, Tsk.”

In other contexts, some might imagine tremendous luck and an auspicious meeting.

This is of course hypothetical. In this corner of the internet, I am not a part of a wider story. It is / I am unknown. But you never know when our stories might come crashing down.

Because of what I can envisage I am pretty confident that I could handle it. Not that I am likely to need it.

Unless people are monitoring this blog, only a tiny few people know. If it is being monitored then that too adds to some wider story, which in the fullness of time might emerge. It adds flavour and spice. Secrecy is always a tasty plot line.

We sometimes are a part in a wider story of which we are almost completely unaware.

You the reader may be a part of one, which you may or may not ever become aware of.

One day everything you thought you knew, might change.

Then again it might stay the same.

Leaving the Palace and Miscellaneous

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Nirmāṇakāya (Chinese: 應身; pinyin: yīngshēn; Tibetan: སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་, tulku, Wylie: sprul sku) is the third aspect of the trikāya and the physical manifestation of a Buddha in time and space.

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Nearly ten years ago I tried to explain to the anaesthetist that because of the very large amount of meditation I had done there might be some anomalies in how I responded to medication – anaesthetic. They completely ignored me and did not take me in any way seriously. A few days subsequent to the operation I had strong recall of being above the operating table watching the “vultures” around my corpse operating. On going into theatre, I was chatting about the clean room conditions of the operating theatre. The same night after ~ six hours of surgery to remove a colon cancer, I stood on my own two feet. Which freaked out the nurse in recovery.

I am pretty sure that something weird transpired during the operation and that it was not spoken about.

There is no way that a modern medical professional would countenance the notion of a nirmāṇakāya or janmanirmāṇakāya; སྐྱེ་བ་སྤྲུལ་སྐུ, skye ba sprul sku. Nor that they might be biologically different to a regular human being.

If one takes the dreaming “evidence” in this blog, then there is a hint of non-standard reincarnations plural stemming back lifetimes. It could be a Soul reincarnating or it could simply be some kind of emanation. In the latter case the emanation body or nirmāṇakāya may not clothe itself in meat in a standard way. I have not read of any different approach to the medical treatment of Tibetan tulkus. But there is a vast amount of stuff which is kept away from prying eyes. My guess is that Tibetan Vajrayana etc. is like an iceberg, with only a tiny bit showing.

The body may be similar but the “mind” very different. Tulkus may be very different to normal people though looking the same. The manifestation, the emanation, need not be that of a full buddha.

On the horizon for me are up to three more major surgeries. In 2019 they put my titanium pin into the left femoral neck/head whist under the influence of a spinal injection and some other drugs. I can remember the bone shaking pneumatic drill. They would not let me watch even though I asked. It was enough to induce PTSD…I was conscious if drugged.

It can be said or observed that I left / renounced the Imperial palace, when I walked out of my job as a senior lecturer at Imperial College in London. I was a strict vegan for a long time, close to nine years. I walked out of a relationship with a wife, a home and a very young female child. I renounced my family later. I meditated extensively away from the madding crowd. I learned science sport and martial arts. There are some of the twelve acts attributed to Siddartha.

At a very long stretch one could say I share these, have them in common.

There is a part of me that wonders if the medical approach to me needs to take other factors into consideration. This adds a little reticence to the notion of drastic orthopaedic surgery. Somehow, I need to understand better…

Hmmn..

ma ’das sprul sku and Taking Dreams Literally

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I have found that if you start looking into things Tibetan that complexity soon arrives.

Today I came upon ma ’das sprul sku for the first time.

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Abstract: A ma ’das sprul sku is a non-hereditary reincarnate lama (sprul sku) who assumes his or her predecessor’s status, but who takes birth before his or her predecessor’s death. This paper presents ten oral histories of ma ’das sprul skus and examines what they and their narrators reveal about the logic of transference in establishing the personhood of a ma ’das sprul sku, how ma ’das sprul sku personhood may challenge conventional understandings of sprul sku personhood and temporality, ma ’das sprul sku and their creators as reflective agents, and what the dearth of ma ’das sprul sku hagiographies may imply.

Marcia Calkowski in The Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies.

https://www.thlib.org/collections/texts/jiats/#!jiats=/07/calkowski/b1/

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The notion that a being can have a second incarnation whilst still alive, kind of messes with the idea that one needs to leave the meat before getting some more. She mentions the idea of mandé trülku.

Taken to the limit that could mean that an emanation, similar to that which gave rise to the Dalai Lama, could already be incarnate whilst he lives.

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Literary Sources for Tulku Lines

Successive systems of reincarnation or tulku (sprul sku) are fascinating sources for the study of the social history of Tibet. The tulku, predicated on Buddhist metaphysics of rebirth, is a phenomena in which a person is recognized as embodying a previous person, in their own current body. This is technically referred to in Tibetan as one who is “recognized as having returned to existence” (yang srid ngos ‘dzin or sprul sku ngos ‘dzin).

There are hundreds of multigenerational tulku lines in Tibet. By looking at when such tulku lines were declared, within which contexts, patterns of interpersonal relations, institutional alliances, and regional practices emerge. We are given new visions of these trans-generational social networks and the weblike worlds in which tulkus function.

From The Buddhist Digital Resource Center.

Tibetan Tulku Lines and Networks

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This suggests that there are so many tulkus that some could be considered common or garden as opposed to the big three.

The naming and interweave is not easily tractable. If I was to start with my recent Tibetan dream, trying to find out who I might have been, there are many pitfalls.

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Tibetan Food Tibetan Caravan Aberfan – Reincarnation – Dream 24-04-2025

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This dream, if taken literally, suggests that I was being escorted out of Tibet in and around the early sixties / late fifties. Clearly that is a big if. It suggests an importance sufficient to warrant an escort and a rank above common or garden

I could search for a person, lama or tulku, who died in and around that time but the list of tulku lines is not easily searchable by date. The dream suggests that I was not going to make it.

https://legacy.tbrc.org/?locale=en#!persons/tulkus

But I may have made it. Which might make me a co-incarnation of a living person. We share an emanatory source. That co-incarnation could have passed on since and could in principle have been born biologically before me, say ~1940s in order to be old enough to march to freedom.

The feeling from the dream was that I was a youth / young man. Which puts a window ~1935 – 1945. My hands in the dream were soft inconsistent with extended heavy manual labour.

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My eight Tibetan Houses Dream

Eight Tibetan Houses (seats) Dream 19-02-2025

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Points at Southeastern Tibet / Shigatse/ Shigatze which might geo-locate an incarnation but does not take me much closer to a named individual in the twentieth century.

My Tibetan Buddhist Search Committee Dream suggests that I might recognise a magically inscribed cabinet. It suggests that I might recognise Tibetan martial arts weapons.

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Tibetan Buddhist Search Committee Dream 29-04-23.

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“The carpet on the floor of the hall has been rolled back to reveal a parquet dance floor of some considerable sheen. Amongst the entourage I can hear gossiping. “It cannot be him; he is too coarse thickset and muscular.”

I hear this and whip off my shirt to reveal my muscular bare chest. I say that I will cooperate with whatever it is they must do. Take a look if you must. I am now wearing saffron yellow trousers, training pants, that are “elasticated” at the ankles. I start to do a forward splits on the floor to warm up. I say that given I am nearly sixty I am surprised that being that old I can still do that.

One of the woman in the entourage says to me that I am much older than that both in this lifetime and stretching way back. I am nearly 73 she says. I do the mental calculation that I must have been “born” in the early 1950s. She says, “we tried to wake you five years ago”. You have been “asleep” and we have been waiting.”

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So, the dreams suggest an inconsistency of age or timing.

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The monastery airport dream points at Leh in Ladakh.

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Buddhist Monastery – Dual Airport – Flight Lieutenant – Dream 27-01-2025

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There are a number of dreams with Kālacakra or wheel of time mandala.

In another dream “Tibetan soil dream” I am given my piece of Tibet.

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Tibetan Monk – Soil – Dragon Lore Dream 31-3-23

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There are other dreams with H.H. Karmapa and H.H. Dalai lama in.

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If dreams are “evidence” then there is quite a bit suggesting some Tibetan connection. If I were a Tibetan having these dreams then the Tibetans would take them more seriously. A hairy arsed sixty-year old Welsh ex-academic spendthrift is not as attractive as perhaps a younger person linked to the sangha.

It is difficult to explain these dreams cropping up from a Freudian or Jungian perspective.

There is circumstantial evidence. It is pretty unlikely that any conscious imaginations / research makes its way fully into dreams. I did not make any of them up. They were recorded as is the morning after.

I have not tried to visualise this putative life as that is more likely to be prone to prejudice / confirmation bias.

It is possible that having looked at this theme there may be more passive dreams on the way….

Maybe I Was an Alpaca?

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This morning’s dream points {again} to some kind of Tibetan incarnation, perhaps some lama-dude. I have long held this possibility at arm’s length because I have had no waking memory of such a thing. The dream indicates a time stamp roughly of 1960 when things were bad in Tibet and a number of lamas left. We hear about the ones who made it. We don’t hear about the ones who did not.

They may have been vulture food.

I did once go to a dzong in London and had an “empowerment” by Tulku Akong Rinpoche. A lama who along with Chögyam Trungpa escaped from Tibet during the Chinese excess.

I have often wondered why no waking recall. The only answer I came up with is that life as a monk is so very boring that there is little to remember, no outstanding dramatic events. Tedium, day after day routine.

If the dream points at a very recent incarnation, then that hints at something like a tulku incarnation, where one life follows quickly.

That does not really impinge on the current health problems and search for a nanna-flat. In a sense it is little more than a phenomenological possibility when viewed from life circumstance. I do not see nor feel that there is much / anything left for me to do.

I have hypothesised that there have been many failures, way more than “successes”. We only hear of the latter because it is they who have ongoing wider significance. In a way quiet failure fertilizes the ground for success.

I am at something of an impasse on the health front and cannot currently see any further steps. There is nothing urgent and I can tolerate the pain and lack of sleep. We need to move house before even thinking about any operation. It is not a complicated equation, for now.

I am currently where I am not seeing medical intervention as something positive and healing. It seems like a necessary thing and to be endured even. It does not fill me with hope for an easier existence.

Do I have to? Well maybe it is sensible.

Who knows what if any dreams will follow tonight…