How about like this...some ingredients and outcomes:

Ø      
the human urge to devise some comprehension of the immense and
amazing world around us

Ø      
the biologically received mental activity that appears immediately in an infant and continues onward to imitate or learn from the parents and all the quicker smarter attractive others

Ø      
overlain eventually with a need to alleviate the distressing
incomprehensibility of the fact that one's lifetime ends in death/personal
extinction

Ø      
combined in a powerfully complex brain with the human reflex to fantacise and imagine presences of all encompassing anthropomorphic entity or entities, and this
crystallizing evolving into beliefs, received belief structures, and social groups called
religions

Ø      ...including human urges to control and lead others, to gain influence and an upper-hand...

Ø   ...combined with the instincts to convey ad receive personal "knowledge", share understanding... 

Ø  ...resulting in emergence of "Godmen" of various sorts -- and mythologies of saviors who can usher one to imaginary lands of afterlife.

"Geez Roger, Jasper...Come on, I was counting on you guys and Roark for some deep thinking!  Explain life to me, uncover the secrets...nudge your aging brains into action!"

I'm with them!  Reading down the thread, I remembered how out of my league I felt when I first started posting when it came to even finding my intellect to engage in the level of debate and discussion taking place here.  That's when I first realized how far behind and stunted I was. 

After reading the thread up to Swimming Free and Jasper, I started shrinking into the feeling that I've still got a long way to go!!  Before SW's post, I had decided to glowingly compliment Roak for his extraordinarily brilliant and well articulated list with the caveat that my post had no bearing on its merits.

If I were to have commented, it would likely have been much closer to PatD's:

"It's much less complicated to say fuck off to all 'teachers' who claim they can explain the ways of God to man, & to look on the previous claimants with a jaundiced eye..."

Having said that, I'd like to read more posts of thoughts about Mike's list... no one should feel any need to shut up, and all the comments so far are inspiring.  Regardless, please do enjoy your porch and these beautiful fading to gold days!

I can probably do up-notch as well as most anyone, it's just that rigorous brain workouts are taxing and it takes too much time.  I know what you mean, though.  I took a break from the forum in part because I felt disappointed when most of my posts fell short of reflecting the respect I have for others here, i.e., sick of my own pabulum.  Then I came back and fell right back into my same old habits.  Thank goodness for the inspiration I draw from others here! 

Anyway, as your noble aspirations for more depth struck a chord, it occurred to me that "Tarvu" might be the root of an "ism" and "ist" might refer to a practitioner.  And so I googled it.  I never knew.  I get it now!  I feel enlightened!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-t7MV-Z6Pc

 Just to parse this dryly, at risk of reducing this dynamic boisterous site into dryness ...  sorry I haven't added any humorous spice here ...  Can anyone "kick it up a notch"?

Ø   To free himself/herself from any limit to personal behaviors, or so as to be rationalized by followers, unexpected or even unacceptable behaviors can be said to be ultimately beneficent "Crazy Wisdom, claiming to be for purposes above the law -- while really this being only clever evasion for exceeding the bounds of acceptable social behavior.  Like the minor example of labeling it after the fact as:  ..."It was just locker room talk." etc.  

...for self-defense and self-preservation, whatever a relatively unhinged transgressor with the upper hand might get away with saying about the unacceptable transgression after the fact, or in advance freeing himself up for some over-the-edge behavior, and then afterward to negate general notice of the distasteful transgression by favorable labeling or any justification, making a
public relations fix to "be going forward" and hoping to normalize the behavior in the public mind, or even a fix to legitimize such obviously devious and transgressive habit.  The perfect master (teacher, leader...politician...president?)  is exempt, far beyond being bound by any normal limits of any sort...isn't he?  Or is he?!

But then a teacher may be intuitively behaving or speaking in a way that's seems crazy or unexpected yet does effect some sort of learning, or unchaining of student's understanding by the very unusualness of the teacher's style of teaching, anything to advance the student's comprehension further, whether or not expected, whether in a "normal" teaching manner or of recognizably informative didactics.  (didactic = intended to educate)

You'd hope for discrimination to be exercised to recognize acceptable vs. unacceptable, appropriate vs. inappropriate ... with full consideration of the results in the student's learning of something or other?

Oh Great Tarvu,

Interesting topic, this one

One of qualities I find virtue in is the sense of ‘freedom’, feeling unbound, spontaneous,
unburdened by the weight of expectations and self-limiting judgments; and characterized
by a lack of fear, anger and suffering.  I
do think there are teachers that have knowingly used unusual, even aberrant
behavior to make good points, and I’ve seen this in action a few times.  I think a depth of freedom, innocence and
unpredictability can arise in the actions of someone that has grown past unnecessary
artifice and limitations.  Wisdom can provide 'space’ to act consciously, which can fall outside of norms and memes when
translated into action.

The ‘Crazy Wisdom' tradition became codified in Tibetan Buddhism, and was typified in
Padmasambhava, who is credited with bringing Buddhism to Tibet.  His brand of Buddhism was very different
than, say, Christian ethics, where it’s pretty easy to see where someone is coming
from by their behavior, and where there is a pedagogy around a divine, theistic
hierarchy and a complimentary way of being that falls in line.   Whereas
much of hardcore Tibetan Buddhism points at eradicating even the idea of individual
being, and also points toward the idea that an individual cannot be ‘spiritually
evaluated’ by how they behave.  Crazy Wisdom, on behalf of teachers, would sometimes involve radical behavior to
intentionally force question into a student’s limited idea of what is
happening, hopefully to jog them into a heightened awareness of what actually ‘is’.  Zen’s use of Koans is similar in a way.

In looking at the Crazy Wisdom effect in a teacher’s behavior, the judgement of where to draw the
line with what is acceptable to the viewer is the crux, and likely based on the
extent of the harm to others a teacher’s behavior generates Vs. any wake up
calls and beneficial effects it may have on the student, and also how conscious
and intentional the aberrant behavior is (and if not just pathology at work).  I suppose this is true of most types of
teachers that utilize some level of shock value, and surely the stock and trade
of many performance artists.

I know I have been shocked out of mental lethargies and self-limiting ideas in a very
refreshing way at times via something I have heard or witnessed, whether from a teacher or not.

A dear friend of mine and a teacher in the Zen tradition sent me a missive this past week that
included the following paragraph:

“As humans, as beings who evolved to possess the current configuration of neuronal circuitry and synthetic cognitive
capacities, we are very keen to constantly construct and project upon the flow
of our experience abstractions about that experience. In the process, which is
so ubiquitous and smooth that we rarely are aware that we are generating and
propagating a derivative version of reality, we strive for a conclusive version
of the narrative—an answer, a theory, a philosophy—that once and for all will
explain everything for everybody for all time. This quirky twist in the
trajectory of the evolution of our species surely contributed to our survival,
as it allowed us not only to get really accurate at anticipating and predicting
course of events but also made it possible for each one of us to create a very
convincing sense of an independent self, imbued with apparently self-evident
importance and meaning, that needed to be sustained, cherished and protected at
any cost. But the price for that evolutionary shift is the distancing from
direct, sensory experience and the atrophy of our abilities to simply feel and
trust the immediacy of the raw contact and grounding without having to revert
to compartmentalizing and organizing the wild content of our lives."

Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, there was a wave of change that was pushing the limits of social mores and individual limitations. 
 I found the sense of impending freedom that permeated the air around GMJ, and I really enjoyed its wonderful nuttiness (and at the same time would recoil at its seamy sides and some of the stupid shit going on).  But I recall perceiving spontaneity in
the way he seemed to live and respond to his surroundings.  But it seems to me that this gave way a long time ago to constrictions and constructs that no longer promoted a sense of freedom and ease.  But when I look at GMJ and premiedom today, I see constriction that borders upon strangulation, and a narrowing of potential and possibility in its ‘corporate methodology’ rather than ongoing opening to new learning and personal growth.  This is also written in his face now, I actually feel sad in the company of still-practicing premies, and am mystified at how they can continue to invest their time in something so obviously nowhere.

I haven’t spent any time around him for decades, but I would be interested to hear what it was like in his household more recently.  Was there a lot of laughter, a sense of ‘funness’ around him??  I am sure there are many on the Forum that could weigh in on this.

Mike

(after perhaps one too many cups of coffee)

I think an individual should be 100% evaluated by how they behave. “Don't do what I do, do what I say,” doesn't cut it for me. The Crazy Wisdom teacher’s behavior has entirely no beneficial effect on the student and IMO is just an excuse for teachers to behave like a**holes. Lila is BS. There are natural growing pains in any spiritual discipline and they don't need to be artificially created. Any paradigm shift comes with confusion so let the process happen naturally. Spiritual growth happens from inside and doesn't have to be triggered with stunts.

That's why I like Hanslok so much. No crazy wisdom there. But hey, if you really want Crazy Wisdom chug back a few 5-Hour Energy shots.