About this time a letter arrived for Lama Ngokpa from Marpa. It read: "The house is finally finished and I'm going to have a big celebration in honor of this occasion. Please come with your students and bring whatever you have to offer.
Therefore Marpa asked for people to bring all their possessions but he was not a false teacher. How would we view a teacher who asked us to do this nowadays? This is our lineage. Why is it in dispute when we have compromised so many of the methods so as not to be accused of abuse?
In the story of Milarepa and Marpa, Marpa took every type of offering and gold in order to amass wealth. This gold was then used to goto India to offer to Naropa to gain instructions.
Therefore the debate is, when is gathering money and demanding offerings religious abuse and when is it pure Buddhism? Does such a way of life have a place in our modern world or is Marpa now wrong?
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