I don't understand why one of them thought you were "trash-talking the Dalai Lama." It really didn't seem that way to me at all. You were talking about his views and not him as person. *shrugs*

I've written (typed?) things in comments and my own blog posts that have been A) taken out of context or B) had way too much read into them as to cause people to think I said or wrote something I never had.

Welcome to the Club. I'm sure this isn't your first time, nor will it be the last. You can't please everyone...

And the funny thing about all of it is that there's no one to get their maroon panties in a bunch anyway, right?

LOL, whatever happened to equanimity?

Jundo got thrown off E-Sangha for the same thing.

I have nothing to say about hissing (except for the hissing of rattlesnakes in the dunes of the Mustang Island). But, on the merit, I think you and those monks are debating the semantic issue.

The belief in anatta (= there is no Atman-Self) and anicca (= all composite things are impermanent) is just as part of the Tibetan tradition as it is part of the Zen tradition. In fact, Nagarjuna is considered one of the Great Patriarchs in each tradition. And there is, perhaps, no other Buddhist Master-"philosopher" who provides more systematic treatment of these concepts, and the concept of shunyatta, than Nagarjuna.

To wit, when the Tibetans say "reincarnation" they mean the same as what you say using the term "rebirth." (In particular, I remember a fragment from a great book by the Dalai Lama, "The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teaching of Christ" (5 stars in my book), where he addresses the issue directly. He mentions a Hindu who was totally terrified after hearing that, according to Buddhism, there is no self that is reincarnated. It took him a while to understand that there is a continuity of a person and karma.

BTW, this essay is quite informative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebirth_%28Buddhism%29

A corresponding essay on the "Reincarnation" is just as good.

What makes you think so?

I have read thousands of pages related to the Buddhist scholarship. I have not yet found any evidence that Tibetan Buddhists who pay attention to philosophical and theological distinctions mean anything different than Zen folks who pay attention to philosophical and theological distinctions. How could they? Madhyamica and to some extend Yogachara are philosophical foundations of both traditions.

For example, Robert Thurman makes very clearly the point that there is no self beyond (or above) the elements grouped in skandhas. Consequently, there is no Self that "reincarnates" (even though there is continuity of personhood). He asserts it in several places including one of his introductorty books to the Tibetan Buddhism and in his introduction to "The Tibetan Book of the Dead."

I even saw once a Tibetan source quoting with approval the Platform Sutra and the fameous gata.

No, I do not know that particular debate. Where can I find it? I would love to read it.

Here is what Thurman says in the introduction to the TBD:

This extremely subtle indestructible [sic!] drop is very similar to the Hindu notion of the Self (atman) or Supreme Self (paramtman), which is reached as the absolute negation of all petty, individual, personality selves. The Buddha was never dogmatic about formulae, even about his most powerful formua known as "selflessness". He emphasized selflessness when talking with absolutists, and he emphasised self when talking with nihilists. So, it is not a question of early Buddhism having no self, and Tantric and Tibetan Buddhism later returning to a self. Buddha always taught a soul [sic!] as what reincarnates [sic!], as a selfless continuum of relative, changing, causally engaged awareness (my emphasis).

Now, he surely uses the term "reincarnation," and he says that the mind, soul, consciousness, whatever, is indestructable. But, even so, indestuctable does not necessarily mean unchanging or permanent or independent in te same sense as Hinduism postulates that atman is permanent, eternal, and unchanging.

"The Dalai Lama is considered to be the latest reincarnation of various tulkus." -- I think it's a matter of semantics. The Tibetans could just as well use the terms "reborn," "rebirth" (and their derivatives) in this context.

I'll try to find it. If you find a more exact reference, please let me know.

Re remembering... let's remember that Jataka Tales (describing previous lives of the Buddha) have always been part of the Buddhist tradition.

Also, early Buddhism clearly implies some concept of rebirt. For example, according to Majjhima Nikaya (108), there are four types of noble disciples:

In this community of monks there are monks who are arahants, whose mental effluents are ended, who have reached fulfillment, done the task, laid down the burden, attained the true goal, totally destroyed the fetter of becoming, and who are released through right gnosis: such are the monks in this community of monks.

In this community of monks there are monks who, with the total ending of the first set of five fetters, are due to be reborn [in the Pure Abodes], there to be totally unbound, never again to return from that world: such are the monks in this community of monks.

In this community of monks there are monks who, with the total ending of [the first] three fetters, and with the attenuation of passion, aversion, & delusion, are once-returners, who — on returning only one more time to this world — will make an ending to stress: such are the monks in this community of monks.

In this community of monks there are monks who, with the total ending of [the first] three fetters, are stream-winners, steadfast, never again destined for states of woe, headed for self-awakening: such are the monks in this community of monks.

Along the same line, I remember a story published in The Endless Vow (the book dedicated to Soen Nakagawa Roshi, I love it so much that I constantly give my copies to friends, so I cannot quote it exactly). The Soen Roshi and his master are somewhere on the continent (in what is now China, I think). One of the students, after breaking through the first koan, immediately and perfectly passes several further koans. They comment on it that it's obviously karma in action.

I take it to mean that we carry something from previous lives. Now, whether it's a memory (in the same sense as we remeber our childhood) is a matter of philosophical interpretation. But, I would say, it's an indication of some connection to "previous lives" (so to speak).

Here are two quotes from The Good Heart (from the glossary of Buddhist terms):

Nagarjuna is perhaps the second most important historical person in Mahayana Buddhism after the Buddha and can be viewed as the founder of the Mahayana. His religious and philosophical writings remain today as the highest authority on many issues of philosophical concern within Buddhist thought.

Clearly, liek the Zen school, Vajrayana accepts the authority of this Patriarch. So, they would reject everything that contradicts Nagarjuna's teachings.

Furthermore:

No-self (anatman). The doctrine of no-self, or selflessness, sometimes also translated as "no-soul," is a key philosophical concept of Buddhism. In brief, it relates to the Buddha's insight that the state of unenlightened conditioned existence is rooted in a false belief in the existence of a permanent, enduring "self." It is an insight into the absence of such a self that opens the door to liberation from the suffering of conditioned existence. [...}

Transcending authority is not the same as not-accepting (or rejecting) authority.

Sure, ultimately, each of us has to "see" it on our own.

But (except for selected few who are Pratyeka Buddhas) we need to trust someone to follow the path. This trust is the acceptance of authority (so, ultimately, we can transcend it).

What I mean is that, if I ever had an honor to work with you on a koan, I would accept your authority -- I would trust that you know something I do not know yet.

There is no self, so there is nothing to which you could turn me.

Still, I would turn there with hands in gassho.

More importantly, thank you for taking your time to have this conversation with me.

Sorry if I beat the dead horse... But, please, allow me to give it one more try. Here is what you said:

Also, what you're saying now is off the point. I'm not interested in debating reincarnation any more than the existence of the tooth fairy.

All right, we are on the same page. I did not mean to quote the "fairy tales" and MN Sutta with the intention to argue for reincarnation. Rather, I meant them to support the idea of the continuity of existence between lives, or rebirth.

Then you continue:

Your original point was that you thought the Tibetans and I were saying the same thing, and that the only difference was one of semantics, and I've explained that that's not the case.

I still don't get it. Please, notice what Konchong says on the Tricycle blog:

8. Konchog - May 8, 2008
[...] The thing is, I couldn’t, and still can’t, see what Brother Barry is arguing against. If the terms are defined carefully, I think no decently educated Buddhist is going to argue for a belief in any “thing” reincarnating (my emphasis). Least of all the Dalai Lama[...]

So, it seems to me that you, and him (and I think most educated Tibetan teachers) agree that

1) there is some continuity of existence;

Now, you use the term "rebirth" to point to this continuity. Tibetans use the term reincarnation. But they also maintain that

2) There is no "thing" that reincarnates

It looks to me like quintessentially the matter of semantics. What am I missing?