Subjectively Philosophical

I am a frequent visitor and an avid reader of a small number of on-line boards dealing with the practice side of enlightenment, primarily the Dharma Overground and Open Enlightenment. I value these resources greatly as they do a very good job of showing the way to people who are genuinely and actively pursuing the mastery of meditative practice with the aim of getting enlightened. There are many voices there that clearly point the way and actively help people achieve what has already been done by them. Consequently, with so much quality material found there I generally have very little need to make my voice heard. My reason for visiting these on-line boards is to read something that may prove useful in my practice, or at the least something that may prove interesting to my intellect.

What surprises me is the number of people who show up on these boards and start either:

a) comparing what is being discussed (such as practical instructions or experiential evidence) with their very limited practical experience of the subject matter, or worse, with their belief system – either based on a hodge-podge interest in spirituality (very common) or the following of a particular tradition (in which case written word and other peoples’ believes are being used as factual evidence without any experiential understanding of the subject matter); or

b) try to leave a mark and satisfy their need for recognition.

It annoys me because these games take a lot of energy and take the focus away from a more practice-centered approach that makes for a more informative and motivating read. All that is happening is that the people who have the most to offer waste their time on replying to people who are there to make a scene in order to satisfy their arrogance, need for conflict, or to prove and defend their dogmatically clinged onto tradition or belief. It is a very frustrating and an ever-growing development, especially since both of the above-mentioned forums gained some notoriety.

All it would take to change this strange behaviour would be for the people who post on these forums to ask themselves why they are there to begin with.

I believe that my practice has gained the most energy when I made my intentions clear to myself, when I realized that I am not as interested in subscribing to or reading about ideologies, traditions, or philosophies, as I am interested in winning the ability to make up my own mind. And the only way to win this ability is to practice diligently and not to waste the mind on silly power games, feeding up one’s arrogance, or defending entrenched belief systems.

All it takes is to use the same attitude towards meditation and spiritual pursuits as we do towards other, ‘more mundane’ things. The only reason this is not happening is because very few people interested in these things actually practice (with any determination or momentum) and therefore have no idea whatsoever what it is that’s being talked about. If they did practice they would see the difference between what they know, can do and have experienced as seen against that which is being explained by people who have more experience in the field (ie. a teacher in a classroom will obviously have more knowledge /and be respected for it/ than the students since the syllabus is known to both parties). Without a basic understanding of the subject matter, based on practice and experience, there is no chance of a sane discussion.