http://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=4386&start=100
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 bhiká¹£u.
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 bhiká¹£us" 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 Vajray�na vows must be received from a preceptor or guru, each according to its own proper rite.
Vajray�na teachings may only be given to people who hold Vajray�na vows. This is why the first portion of any empowerment is conferral of the basic Vajray�na 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 Vajray�na 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