[WhiteBlueSkies]

But you can't just drop Tibetan Buddhism just like that. It's a tradition going back thousands of years and I think Dzogchen should be the Northern star in a mad world taking us to peace and happiness. After all they say it's the highest vehicle for liberation. So it's very sad to see them producing people which are accused of ethical transgressions.

What do you consider the paragon of Buddhist practice? Maybe I can check them out online. I've hung around DhO and people complain that Buddhist practitioners have more of an emptiness dryness aspect to them as opposed to lively joyous qualities of other traditions like Advaita. I'm not impressed with Zen masters. They espouse very dry rigorous qualities and they don't appear to me carelessly joyous and happy.

[mtalantikite]

I don't think the OP was dropping Tibetan Buddhism, just pointing out that it can be very complicated and could end up in a lot of confusion (which I agree with). They mentioned Ajahn Geoff [1] as a good place to find deep teaching, which I also agree with. My first introduction to formal Buddhism was through friends that ended up ordaining with him almost 20 years ago. My practice ended up more in vajrayana training, but I still go back to read the books they sent from his monastery often.

Personally, I don't think there is a paragon of Buddhist practice. If you're looking for one I think you might be doing it wrong, so to speak. All three yanas have great teachers, just use your discernment as you follow your path.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%B9%ACh%C4%81nissaro_Bhikkh...

[nativecoinc]

I have been part of a Tibetan sect (a Western sect associated with Karma Kagyu). The people there said that Tibetan Buddhism was the most advanced form of Buddhism. But also that it was only for those who were ready for it. Theravada Buddhism to them would be the simplest form: less powerful but probably also less dangerous.

Those people wouldn’t for one second judge a person who wanted to practice a “less advanced” form of Buddhism. It’s all about what the person is ready for, according to them.

[q845712]

I had a teacher (also from Karma Kagyu) who would use a racecar metaphor: the point of a racecar is to be a really fast vehicle. That doesn't mean that a racecar is the most suitable vehicle for all tasks, or "best" in any overall sense of the word. Racecars are only well suited to certain conditions, and are usually driven by people who trained and practiced specially to drive them. Some tasks and lifecycles need a pickup truck, others a minivan, others an 18-wheeler, and personally I love to point out that the bicycle is the most efficient form of wheeled transportation.

So anyways the vajryana is the racecar. The point of that metaphor wasn't to flesh out which schools corresponded to a sedan or anything, but more like to point out how few people drive racecars, how few tasks or challenges are well solved by racecars, how much training, respect, and caution you might want to have before you started driving racecars at full speed, the conditions under which you would consider driving a racecar, etc. etc. And like you said, there's no judgement for not driving a racecar -- if anything there's a lot of respect and/or demand for people to drive more practical vehicles.

tho idk, personally, even though in my material life I prefer a bicycle, in my spiritual life I'm still trying to train to drive the racecar, so maybe it needs an even less sexy anology.

[pessimizer]

> But you can't just drop Tibetan Buddhism just like that.

You can if you're doing a "no true Buddhist" argument.