--- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> > wrote: > > > > It certainly applies to you. You did it just above. > > You took a statement of Vaj's that is clearly literally > > correct and claimed that it was "incorrect" because you > > don't agree with it. Many people do agree with it. What > > makes those who agree with his statement "incorrect" > > and those who agree with your view "correct?" > > Experience. Only experience. The reason I said that TM is not > a false path is because I have done it for 30+ plus years and > it worked/works for me. I don't consider myself as special in > any way, ergo it must be a path that works for others, ergo, > it isn't a false path.
There is a huge logical fallacy in your statement, but ignoring it, what you have just described is how you came to hold your OPINION on whether TM is a false path or not. OPINION is not a candidate for "correct" or "incorrect." In your previous statements, you blithely described those who hold the OPINION that TM is a false path as "incorrect." They are not. They merely have a different OPINION than you do. NONE of you knows the "truth" of the situation, only what you believe as your OPINION. Therefore none of you is able to call the other's OPINION "correct" or "incorrect." You are using sloppy language. I'm calling you on it. > The validity of a path to me is dependent on whether or > not it works, not whether some group proclaims that it > is false, or whether it charges money for its practice. These are all perfectly fine, as mechanisms with which to form an OPINION. They have nothing whatsoever to do with whether that OPINION is "correct" or "incorrect." > Whether or not it works means does it do what it is > supposed to, which in the case of TM means 1)eliminate > suffering and 2) create world peace. In both cases it > does this. More OPINION, and in this case, both 1 and 2 are demonstrably *false* opinions, in that 2 has never happened, and 1 has not happened for the vast majority of TM practitioners. As your OPINION, it is fine for you to believe this. But I'd be willing to bet you couldn't convince even the majority of TM practitioners of the "correctness" of this OPINION, much less those who don't practice it. > Now, to address the techniques of Tibetan Buddhism, they may do the > first thing, but they clearly have no environmental effect > whatsoever. And you know this how? :-) > Otherwise the country of Tibet maintaining the tradition > would not have been destroyed. What if it were the dharma *for* it to be destroyed? :-) > So I proclaim Tibetan Buddhism as a false path. Oh, also > Thai Buddhism a false path, because I read about a monk > several weeks ago mutilating himself because he had > achieved an erection. As OPINION, you can say this all day, and few will give you grief for it. They might laugh at you, but they would probably not give you a hard time for having that opinion. But the moment you declare your OPINION to be "correct" and other people's OPINION to be "incorrect," you've crossed an important line. You're crossing that line. On the one side of it you're just an Ordinary Joe with an OPINION. On the other side (the one you're on currently), you're a fanatic.
