A great man, Nelson Mandala, has passed away, and all the world mourns losing him to the ages.
Japhy is reminded of Shamar Rinpoche on the subject of his previous incarnations.
According to Rinpoche, one or two were for the ages, great men who did more than their circumstances otherwise would have allowed them to accomplish.
The rest, including himself, not so much.
“As far as the lineage of teachers is concerned, knowledge is not handed down like an antique.”
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche #buddhism
When I was a freshman in college in 1976 I like countless undergraduates across the country took a stand against Apartheid.
The issue of our day was the effort to stop our schools from investing in corporations that benefited from supporting PW Botha’s South Africa.
Mandela was freed in 1990.
“The teachings are always up to date. They are not ancient wisdom, an old legend.”
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche #buddhism
From the moment the 17th Karmapa was recognized as the 16th’s reincarnation he has been a prisoner of his circumstances.
Since he was fourteen His Holiness has been held under house arrest I f the Indian Government.
An international campaign on behalf of His Holiness?
Japhy scoffs at the idea, that isn’t how it work.
The 17th Karmapa is no Nelson Mandela.
According to Mandela adversity breaks some men while making others.
That was his experience as a prisoner.
It remains to be seen the man that will emerge from the 17th Karmapa’s life to date as he faces another year as the victim of his circumstances.
Karmapa Chenno!
Tinfoil Ushnisha 
Fucky fucky. You so wise big phat white lama. You great big white Tulku- American mahasiddha!
Poser.
The Prisoner of Chillon
By Lord Byron (George Gordon)
My hair is grey, but not with years,
Nor grew it white
In a single night,
As men’s have grown from sudden fears:
My limbs are bow’d, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,
For they have been a dungeon’s spoil,
And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air
Are bann’d, and barr’d—forbidden fare;
But this was for my father’s faith
I suffer’d chains and courted death;
That father perish’d at the stake
For tenets he would not forsake;
And for the same his lineal race
In darkness found a dwelling place;
We were seven—who now are one,
Six in youth, and one in age,
Finish’d as they had begun,
Proud of Persecution’s rage;
One in fire, and two in field,
Their belief with blood have seal’d,
Dying as their father died,
For the God their foes denied;—
Three were in a dungeon cast,
Of whom this wreck is left the last.
Thanks.