The following two posts from 1998 were part of an ongoing dialogue with a Daist who at that time used the online name Conrad. Conrad was quite a presence in those days on the old Ken Wilber Forum and on the Daism Forum. He later posted on the Daism Forum under the names "Sleeping Beauty", "Smoke", and "Kalamazoo".

Conrad,

Your argument is almost entirely semantic. I am well aware that Frank has said "there is no separate person."

And yet his is a path of interminable accusation and abuse of the imaginary separate person! Instead of making it obvious that "no separate person" exists, his conflicted teaching posits and reinforces the existence of this "separate person" at every turn.

It is Daism that has an ego-based view of the human condition, not I. My own view is that human beings are essentially good, and already living from a core of purity and divinity. The "self-contraction" is, for most people, simply a matter of wrong view. Once human beings taste the nectar of real wisdom, they respond like bees to honey. (After all, Reality is much more attractive, pleasing, nourishing, and satisfying than that which does not exist!)

Frank is unable to deliver the nectar that would attract real devotees, so he falls back on blaming the whole human race for "failing" him! In doing this he never recognizes that he has made himself part of "the problem" -- that his cynical ego-based view of the human race is itself the adversary (or Shadow) he must have in order to maintain the distance from the human race that he craves.

In order to maintain his isolation, he must continually convince himself of the "failure" of his devotees, and to make sure they continue to "fail", he works overtime to obscure people's instinctive (and natural) divinity with an old-time religion of "sin".

The authoritarianism and plain lack of compassion in Daism is based on Frank's self-perpetuating "war" with the imaginary ego of devotees (as well as with humanity at large).

I would go further (and will in future posts) to say that Frank himself represents a mode and process of self-contraction upon the divine. This is fairly obvious to everybody except those who have bought his sales pitch about himself and also bought his description of themselves as "loveless assholes".

Not that there's anything "wrong" with that! Like a twisted tree with wormy apples, Frank is just part of nature. No blame! (But I don't have to eat them apples.)

IMHO, until Frank understands the essential innocence of the human condition, he will forever be stuck on the "self-contraction", making it into a reality against which he can push and raise himself up in his own eyes.

regards,

Elias

Dear Conrad,

Whether Franklin teaches and vows to conquer the separate person and awaken the Buddha-Nature is somewhat beside the point, because his active approach is dualistic, conflicted, ego-battling, bullying, and, after 25 years or so, has only succeeded in knocking out a tiny cookie-cutter clan of true-believers.

The terror of Daism is that it begins by teaching you you aren't worth a shit. And it's all downhill from there.

There is such a total guilt-trip that comes through your posts -- and, knowing the teaching, I know that it originates from your conditioning under Frank. In your (and his) heartless world, no one is allowed any longer to know themselves. In your world, to claim to know yourself is the Original Sin, and, by definition the delusion of "ego".

That's why (as I observed first-hand), the children of the Daist community are taught self-doubt from nursery school on up.

Thank God for Buddha! I've been seeing and hearing the Dalai Lama a lot lately, and it is just so obvious how he begins a relationship by honoring the Buddha in others...and then continues by treating the other as a living Buddha. Why? Because he sees Buddha in you! So why should he not treat you with respect?

Frank -- and I'll say it one more time -- only sees Narcissus, his adversary, that dastardly "separate self". And you, Conrad, only see Narcissus, your adversary. You guys don't even see Buddha in Buddha! Buddha, Christ, et al are "limited" and not "7th-stage" realizers, in your warped (and rather silly) view.

(Which view, BTW, assumes that Buddha and Christ and Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna entered some kind of stasis-consciousness when they died, so that Frank might comfortably "rank" them permanently beneath himself. This is how Frank misunderstands the nature of life...and death.)

If I was a humble and wise as the Dalai Lama, I would see Buddha in you. Unfortunately, I am a weak man, and must take umbrage at the way you and Frank mistreat others, including the way you guys run down the avatars. The avatars are my buds, and I just gotta stick up for my buds.

You accuse me of wanting to "destroy" Daism. Bullshit. All I do is point out the very elements by which Daism is destroying itself.

Why is it, BTW, that I and many others have no problem at all with Buddhism or Dzogchen teachings, which are the ancient essence of the truth of liberation? We even like to point out that Frank's early "Radical Understanding" idea was very close to the central Dzogchen dharma. You see, we are using our discrimination -- a big no-no around Frank. We think The Paradox of Instruction is real wisdom, but almost everything Frank has published in the last ten years is raving megalomania. Sorry, that's how we see it. If you don't like our views, go away and start a religion or something. ;-)

We'd probably love it if Frank "got back" to the early promise, and down off his miles-high pedestal of self-exaltation. Heck, I'd even kiss his big stinky fungus-invested toe -- much as I would kiss the Dalai Lama's feet, in a second.

Show us your humility, Frank. (And don't worry so much about whether we are doin' the right thing by God n' stuff. We're o.k. with the Heart. We're peaceful inside, and we'll be fine.)

love,