As this website will move to an updated platform, I hope this will open new possibilities. One of the thing that I find regrettable about the DhO is that we lost advanced practitioners. At some point, they can no longer get much information from here as there are too advanced in there practice. They come commenting once in a while but their very insightful post is drowned is a sea of advice from less mature practitioners.

Since one of the intention of the DhO is to encourage people to be more open about their achievement, I think having a way to show more visibility and recognition of those achievement would be helpful. It would orient new comers and still keep them comfortable to seek and provide advice at their own level.

Maybe with a bit of hacking we could make it possible to show under the avatar where we think we are on the path. An alternative is to use the signature but it clutter the forum.

Another thing I would like to see being put in place is a blogging system parallel to the forum. Advanced practitioners might be interested in taking the time to write very insightful text and it would be a tragedy to see those gems getting lost in abyss of the forum. Maybe we could get back a few of them that when to create their own blog and give them the visibility that they deserve.

It could also be used for practice log, as I think the blog format is a better fit than a forum for that purpose, maybe in a separate section.

Edit: I never had in mind a "badge" system but more a text section under the avatar that can be used for anything the use want to: kind of practice, stages, personal address, quote of the day, website address, etc. Those field exists in the profile but don't get any visibility.


Edit 2: I'm more interested in looking how we can improve visibility of various things on the main page. See my post and mockup here:
http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5164879#_19_message_5164879

You mean like Reddit-style badges where people could choose "Arahat," "Anagami," and so forth? I think that would be great and very much in keeping with the aim of this site. I'd suggest limiting it to just the five options: no path, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, as described in MCTB. It would be really cool to see where people are at when they respond.

Something like that. It could be more verbose free style and be used for anyone and change depending on our mood.. Like "Lost in Equanimity toward 2th Path". "Darknighting at level 1". "Happy time in re-observation". And Those more confident: "In-and-out at 3th" "Arahantiiish". "4th and Beyond!!!"

While it would be nice that this label remains attached to the post, so that when we digg up old post we have an idea of the mindset of the person, this would imply putting it in a signature, which isn't great. So I guess it would have to be managed like the avatar instead and only show the current stage of the person.

Remember, if there were advanced practitioners wanting to share something they could simply start an independent blog and advertise it here. I don't think it's technology that's holding them back but rather a disenchantment with everything related to awakening.

People do that. There's The Hamilton Project for instance.

I believe that website like the hamiltonproject don't get the visibility they deserve. Much more people visit the DhO everyday than any of those offsprings. Also, people will tend to comment much less on articles when there is not the critical mass for a discussion. It's even worse when people have to sign-in to comments. The old Kenneth Folk website had a space for guess writer but it was somewhat buried and a bit of a mess. But this is what I have in mind. Very insightful posts tend to get lost in the forum. Our attempt at keeping track of them has been abysmal.

Yeh, i think it is the case. But it may be cyclical for some with short periods of activity followed by long periods of meh.The rabbit hole is what it is ...or isnt. I would never want to diagnose myself and advertise it on here as i dont see any valid point anymore.

Whether that's due to the difficulty of finding the right label, finding the right way to position yourself in relation to others, figuring out where you stand in the history of your tradition(s), or general disillusionment with the power and legitimacy (or otherwise) of labels.... it would be a shame to have all that experience go to waste. From this bystander's perspective it looks like a few of you guys have a ton of valuable experience to share, despite being in terminological limbo and standing in uncertain relation to the people and practices that influenced you. Instead of letting that tie your tongues indefinitely (if indeed that's what's happening), have you thought of finding new ways to express what you're experiencing, and then expressing it freely?

(Not really seeking an answer; don't want to open up a can of worms; intended more as food for thought, really).

Currently at 'meh' period so nope......unless asked about practice specifics, that might trigger a response, but there are enough people spouting their hard won wisdom on here these days......again probably the best way to see if the absent can help is by contacting them by other means eg asking them directly via email.

Nick

You might be surprised at the attainments, insights and abilities, regardless of labels, of plenty of people who post responses quite often. I see plenty of insight and good quality stuff here, and the more serious and high-level questions that require the depth you get from people with more experience tends to get them interested, so it seems to me. Most questions here don't really require that level of depth, but some do, and then I tend to notice the relative heavy-hitters stepping up to the plate, but perhaps my perspective is a skewed one and I fail to see the depth of need that is not being met.

As to other aspects of the place:

I have numerous times asked for people to help fill in the Wiki and basically every single time the response is a total flat nothing.

We used to have a Blog here and I asked for Blog Authors to come forth, and it totally died due to nobody wanting to write anything.

Early on I offered to give individual teachers who were thinking about going solo their whole own spaces for free with their own control of what went on there: total disinterest.

It is the work of a few clicks for me to create a Blog Page, to create a Blog Author, to create a Wiki Author, to create a Community: but interest time and time again is nearly nothing.

I have plenty of times asked if people wanted space to post things and it just came to zilch.

There were 6 specialty communities originally for things like Immediate Non-Dual Practices, Magick, Energetic Stuff, etc., each with their own Blog, Forum, and the like, and all totally didn't get used and so they finally got deleted.

Liferay even in its current form is vast and powerful, which is part of the reason it was chosen. I can set up layers upon layers, pages upon pages, sections upon sections, etc., all very easily. Interest: the main forum, the wiki as read-only, that's about it. This has been demonstrated again and again. I am about to have simply tons of memory: about 435GB of SSD memory, 16GB working RAM, so this place could handle whatever we wanted to do except lots of video or perhaps really heavy audio streaming, as I don't have that much up-load bandwidth at the moment.

If things change and there is really interest in more, let me know and I will happily create it. Perhaps unmet need has arisen since the last time I asked people about these things.

Perhaps 6.2 will make setting up personal pages easier, and then people would have more places to post about their skill-sets and claims to attainments and the like.

Daniel

I'm deeply, fundamentally opposed to such a ranking system, but that may be just me. FWIW, here are a few points to consider:

What does "advanced" mean? Which milestones from which map should be used? How can these attainments be verified? Can a reborn Christian get the Stream Enterer badge? Should a Master of the Temple be listened to by someone in Equanimity? Can a materialist who really gets Pascal's "Cogito ergo Sum" be considered to have the mind-body-ñana, or is is the fetter of identity-view or even the fetter of self-conceit?

What about abuse scenarios? My experience is that a title, any title, will lead to a reduction in critical thinking. "This person is an anagami with 8 Jhanas and Nirodha S. and lucid dreams and Siddhis X, Y, and Z. Surely their advice on relationship matters / financial matters / diet / health / political orientation / job situatin / ... must be sound!!!!11!!1!" ;)

On the other end, what does it do to someone to be put on a pedestal like that? When normal interaction is always spiced by the level of respect corresponding to that badge on a webside? Can get lonely... If we want to keep the old-timers engaged, better to treat them like any other poster here, which is a lot more fun.

The notion that there is "advanced Dhamma" and "basic Dhamma" which are somehow different, is kinda tricky in itself, since the Dhamma is universal. Yeah, I know, I know, "already enlightened" and related fallacies. That's not what I mean. Delusion is delusion no matter who is deluded. Dhamma is Dhamma even if it's printed in a tabloid.

If we introduce grades for someone's advancement in the Dhamma, we should also introduce a measure of how refined (and therefore hard to notice) their Kilesas have become. Like, "Anagami. Beware: subtle levels of greed, hatered, and delusion which may fool anyone up to and including Anagami" While it's not that simple, it's not that far from my experience of this situation, either.

Not every long-time practitioner is a good teacher. Not every talented teacher is an expert in every technique and view. Not every charismatic person is either a long-time practitioner or a good teacher or both.

Do we want teacher roles at all? I for one really like the egalitarian model.



I'm more in favor of new participants actually reading posts and forming their own conclusions rather than relying on some simple grading model. People tend to be quite open about their achievements in their posts here.

Regarding the technical possibilities of an upgraded Liferay: certainly looking forward to it, having tried to do it and failed, a year ago.

Chees,
Florian

I agree with Florian. The join date and perhaps post number is already a fairly decent indicator of more mature practitioners. The join date does not indicate how long someone has been meditating or what their attainment is, but it does indicate how long someone has been familiar with MCTB, the terminology, the maps, the samatha jhanas, and is a rough indicator of their personal experience with these stages and states.

It is not perfect in that there may be newer members who were previously lurkers who have now joined or people who were already advanced in their practice when they joined. On the other hand, there may be people who have posted a lot or joined a while back who have not done the practices or have not attained to certain attainments. However, these kinds of differences already tend to get clarified in the text that people post as people tend to be pretty open about where they think they are.



I think the "recent posts" button accomplishes this task fairly well since someone can investigate a person's older posts to see where they are and what they have posted. It could be more difficult mining through someone who has a lot of posts, but perhaps there could be a way for someone to highlight certain posts in their history that they think are relevant or important. Perhaps there could be some profile system where people can link important posts they have generated and/or responded to. Right now when you click a person's name it just opens up some useless calendar thing.

Tom Yeah, I get a lot of insight from reading many people's posts, reading people over time, reading self-called "newbie" posts, reading the flow of a thread... no thanks "ranks" ;) I love this peer-to-peer model of fluid layers; different people are helpful at different times to different people... people bring in/recommend some useful texts/resources/retreat centers, too. For me, the system works. I liked knowing the history Daniel showed also, that efforts like that have been started and fell off through lack of sustaining genuine interest.

Instead of badges I think any old practice logs (no matter how meandering or repetitive they are) should be added if they aren't here.

There's tons of stuff I've found like odd scraps from Daniel/Nick/Ian And floating around. Sometimes just clicking on recent posts and going to the very first posts can bring up some stuff from people who don't post here anymore.

+1

Kind of "my favourite posts". It would be even better if the user could edit the text to give some context to his post. Eg: "these was very useful when I was full on Mahasi Noting, though nowadays I mix my practice with XXX XYZ ...". If a recall correctly, something alike happened a few months ago with an old post from Nikolai. Added: that is, someone re-posted Nikolai's old post, and Nick said that it's funny to read what he thought about the subject 4-5 years ago, and that explained how he think nowadays.

To clarify, I was making two separate proposals which kind of got mixed up. First, there is the blog section. According to Daniel, past attempt failed miserably. I wonder if there was issues of visibility behind that failure, the same goes for the wiki. Update on the wiki don't get noticed because they don't show on the main page. If we want a blog section, a feed on the main page should show the new entries. It's a bit like the messaging system. There is no indicator for new messages on the main page. An alternative to that would simply be to configure an RSS feed shown on the main page that gather blog post from bloggers known for their insightful posts and close to the DhO community.

Even if the way I presented the idea of a place holder for achievement came out as a badge system, it's not what I had in mind in the first place. At the origin, I was thinking of place holder to indicate what we struggle with but it could be used for anything else. Something where we can write whatever we want. It could be used to indicate the kind of practice we are currently experimenting with, where we get stuck in the path, and yes, possible achievement if someone feel comfortable to do so. We shouldn't take it too seriously and enter statement like "Got to first base" "Seeing lights and stuff". "Guys, I'm lost" "Feel like I'm done" "Beyond the tipping point". "Christian contemplative. Sometimes".

People could even use it to indicate where they are living if they feel like to, their mood, contact information or their website. Nobody fill up those entry in their profile because there is no visibility for it.

I don't know if liferay allow for text to be shown under the avatar but there is the possibility to do so, I believe people would find creative ways to use it.

Another little bit of history...

Very early on in the DhO, there was the concept of Elder. It was proposed by Kenneth Folk, fitting with his vision of a modified hierarchy at the time, in which the DhO would in some way sanction experts and approved teachers, and so included as a roles in the list of roles here by his request. In fact, the role still exists as a legacy from that early period, but category was never really used for anything and so that is why you haven't heard of it, as it creeped me out just a bit.

I don't personally have any interest in doing anything with it, as I also prefer a style in which people's claims are their own, not a part of the DhO structure at all, and you get to know people based on their posts and come to trust them or not based on the merit of their words rather than anything sanctioned or codified into formal roles by this platform.

Those who have been here long enough will be very aware that claims to attainments shift all the time, people routinely revoke claiming to have attained to whatever even at high levels, and I think that is all really healthy and anything that interferes with that would be a loss and a potential detriment to progress, I feel, as it can be very confusing to those who don't know that re-evaluating one's practice in the light of new experiences or new information is a very good idea, but those who have come to think of a person as being of whatever defined rank can react badly to that at times. There is enough of this already without adding more to it.

I don't mind if people have personal pages (and perhaps that will show up in 6.2, but no promises) where they claim whatever, or post on forums claiming whatever, but somehow putting it right by their name as part of the DhO forum feels wrong to me.

Liferay does have ranking categories for those who have posted various numbers of posts, and the stock one is pretty funny, drawing from Star Wars, such as Jedi Master, and the like, when you get to a certain number of posts, but I found it too totally cheesy even for this place.

Other opinions?

Daniel
Public Claimer of All Sorts of Things, Dharma Overground Overlord ;)

Let's have it be based solely on number of posts requiring around 10*(1.39256146991)^x posts, where x is the level of achievement, along with two special introductory ranks:

[indent]0: Newbie
5: Expert Newbie
10: Master Newbie
15: Journeyman
20: Master Journeyman
30: Expert
40: Supreme Expert
50: Artisan
70: Expert Artisan
100: Master
140: Supreme Master
200: Grand Master
275: Supreme Grand Master
400: Illustrious Grand Master
525: Zen Master
750: Supreme Zen Master
1050: Zen Grand Master
1450: Supreme Zen Grand Master
2000: Illustrious Zen Grand Master[/indent]
Not to mention the extremely coveted:

[indent]2785: Imperial and Serene Zen Grand Master
4000: Sublimely Majestic Zen Grand Master[/indent]
And of course the utmost pinnacle of achievement:

[indent]5400: Supreme and Luminous Dharma King[/indent]

I did some experiment with a trial of liferay to see how we could organize the welcome page to give more visibility to various stuff. Take it as a mockup:
¸
http://liferayportalee-51421-simontanguay.app.standingcloud.com/web/guest/home

I didn't have many choices of layout in the trial so I had to do some compromise. First of all, I wouldn't want the message board to be shown in the first block like I did. There is way too many categories in the DhO to be shown in a preview welcome page. Instead, it could be simply the list of recent posts. The RSS feed for that is broken and look ugly (I put the RSS feed to the recent post of the DhO just under for you to see). I think it would be possible to do it with an IFrame and a customized page.

Having an RSS feed to the wiki might encourage people to look at it and update it. If you allow people to write their own blog on the DhO, an aggregator on the main page is a must. Other RSS that the DhO landlord consider of value could also be shown on the main page (I put Kenneth and the hamiltonproject to give an idea).

I think we should also find an alternative to the stickies. Half the "recents posts" is filled by stickies now. I tend to ignore them when they haven't been updated in a while and if someone get to post in one, only the date of the last post indicate it. I think having a page of links to the threads that are worth keeping track of would be of more value. It could be well organized in a various ways and if someone end up commenting in that thread, it will show up in the most recents.

Dearest Claudiu, Emu-est,


Wouldst thou forget
5500: Sweet Mother of God?

And somewhere at the symbolic 10,000 mark, there shines "Oh suchness which pees higher" upon whom only "the dimensionless wonk" may adimensionally smile.


Mindfully,
Remedial newbie

________
Seriously, one of the things I like about the site is that
a) no one sits on high, and
b) peers who've just been through something or who are getting through something can often explain that particular practice and effort well, based in recent personal experience, and
c) People continually get challenged in their accounts without any barrier of "Should I challenge an 'elder'/deemed 'advanced' practitioner?"
d) People can decide for themselves who is an apt teacher to them at any one moment.

That makes you higher than me! **bows and thinks about commenting some more on multiple threads**

I started to come up with another funny scale, excerpts below

1 Likely just crossed A&P
5 Probably in Dark Night by now
...
100 Considered World of Warcraft?
...
500 Probably doesn't have kids
...
1000 Perhaps chronically underemployed
...
1500 Serious Dharma Geek
...
2000 Family considering intervention
...

I'm a second level Dwarven Lurker, with 15 hit points. #amidoingthisrite

Take heart, the road from Zen Grand Master to Supreme Zen Grand Master is a long one and you're almost there! Of course I am almost an Illustrious Zen Grand Master, and when I reach the rank I shall certainly *not* expect supplications and praise and being addressed by my title, though I may or may not publicly shun people who fail to do so =D.

Wow, "Oh suchness which pees higher" - that's brilliant! +1

I didn't get a chance to contribute to this discussion originally, and since I am feeling a ban coming on, I just wanted to try and add some constructive suggestions on how to improve things on here while I still had the chance. Some of these have been suggested already, so this is just my take on it thinking about it independently. I am not sure how technically possible all this would be - perhaps that often talked about merger with the awake network might help with that.

1. We should remove the humour section. Encouraging humour will just lead to disrespectful behaviour that should be taken extremely seriously and stamped out. Also remove the Battleground section, because you are just asking for trouble.
2. Resurrecting the Dharma Underground seems a necessity. Membership should be invite only, and for the fully enlightened (i.e. technical 4th path and above). Applications could be considered, though, with some kind of vetting process, like a rigorous and arduous test of meditation skill, or a riddle. I suggest appointing TripleThink in this gate keeper/bouncer role, if he wanted to join us again. One advantage is that gaining access to this club could serve as an incentive for non-members to reach higher stages of the path.
3. We should have badges for users (which show up next to their avatar) that specify which achievements have been unlocked. E.g. 1st-4th path, Jhanas, siddhi's, experiential knowledge into the truth of rebirth/reincarnation etc…
4. Similar to the above, we should implement some kind of "status" message which allows users to specify the stage of insight there are on (if still cycling). This would help other users to help interpret posts and respond accordingly (e.g., share in their joy of the a&p, be more compassionate when in dark night)
5. Implement a hardcore-o-meter. This is a must! Users could click a button on each post (similar to a thumbs up or thumbs down) on how hardcore they thought the post was. Not sure this whether this should be a point rating or simply hardcore +1/hardcore -1. Over time users would build up their hardcore rating and reputation. This would have many advantages. For example, this would serve as an incentive to post in way consistent with the spirit of the forum, such as encouraging posts with detailed descriptions of phenomenological experience, open-mindedness, and discussion of fully understood concepts. It was also allow other users to assess how seriously to take the advice of other posters, and their arguments. It could also allow moderators to manage the infraction system (see below).
6. Allow mods to create an infraction/penalty system which means Hardcore-Ratings (see 5) could be reduced. The penalty would depend on the offence. More serious offences such as mockery and being dogmatic and closed-minded would occur a large penalty, with lesser offences such advocating closed-minded belief system when inappropriate or discussion of half understood concepts leading to a smaller penalty.
7. Linked to point 6, rating penalties for infractions could be linked to their Hardcore-Rating, perhaps by some kind of multiplier, so that rating docking for members with high Hardcore-Ratings would be smaller compared with those having low Hardcore-Ratings.
8. Similar to idea 2, we could use the Hardcore-Rating to unlock various lower echelon private "rooms"/discussion boards (though keeping the full enlightened club separate), e.g. 1st path and above, 2nd path above and so on.
9. People would start off with a hardcore rating with 0, but it could go into minus levels, and when a particular low score is achieved, that would lead to an automatic user ban (seems fair and creates less work for moderators).

That is all of I can think of right now, but feel free to chip with further suggestions or any disagreements.

You need to stop freaking out. No one is going to ban you. We are merely trying to integrate you into our community, which we find difficult to do since you continually propose heretical notions (probably due to boredom, or lack of moving towards anything) and are not getting off your ass and joining us!

This is just a phase, don't leave. It's not possible to leave, once you've crossed the A&P. You need to stay and work this out, and then you'll be become integrated, hanging around here is a powerful helper for spiritual progress.

Dear Sawfoot,

As to your suggestions, you are welcome to start a forum somewhere with those qualities, as the technology definitely exists and should be relatively straightforward to implement. If that would do a better job of fulfilling your needs,  please do so at your earliest convenience, as I personally am convinced that your own dreams of how a forum should be and what it should be about are far from what is found here, and my own dreams of what a forum should be about are similar far from your vision of one. The internet being a wide-open, easily configured, extremely malleable place as it is, it is very strange that you haven't gone forth to seek happiness according to your vision and specifications.

Daniel

Dear Sawfootsy, 

Yes, badges. I have been saaaaying this <whines>. Did I need to put on my bigger santimony pants or what? Anyway, yes, little round Dharmascouts badges sewn onto sashes, but displayed here, sure; badges for starts campfire with eyes, toumo-hands baked choco-chip cookies; mega-faster.  And then we can have our gay scout leader scandal, which will be something like, "Oh, that Elder, they're an out dualist. I'm not letting my kids practice with a dualist. That's crap. Come on, first born, we're gonna form our own non-dual dharmascouts."

Wait, it is Saturday night, right? Yeah, well, I'm texting from a *hot* party. Of. One. ZZza-buton!


_____
edit: Yeah, you might need a new model. A model just frames a portion of something limitedless to study. And in this case one is saying, "I'mgoing study my brain on breathing or my brain on noting or my brain on mantra or my brain on branbuds. You know all this. Or you just keep loving and fighting the models you try related to this site/sitting and observing what own mind is doing. You know it's an internal practice the rigor of which is personally variable and the raison d'etre of which is the personal (subjective) route to understanding and letting cease the causes in the stinky, stinky dukkhy. Not ending unpleasant sensations, not creating magic, not creating magically unpleasant sensations (e.g., provoking unicorns into a rage and attack). Just understanding the causes of the dukkhy coming from own-mind views and seeing if one can train the mind to have ways of perceiving that are not the stanky, stanky, McStankle dukkhy.

Plenty of sites have that sort of "I am ranked higher than you and you better damn well respect that" approach.  No humour, no life.  Any forum without the ability to poke fun at it's own importance is boring to me. Why not join the corporate world if you like badges and recognition of your specialness?  It is a very reliable way to increase self-esteem, and a certain kind of happiness. 

I see the dho as being quite a cool place in that it hasn't banned me or even noticed infractions!  (what with my various rants over the years). Acceptance and non-judgment are signs of spiritual progress, imo.   Of course one needs to differentiate between 1). biting one's tongue because one is trying to be a good little buddhist   and 2). simply not caring that much; unfussed.   When I see 2). I know whose posts to read.

Whassup Steger? Long time.

Well, now I'm touched thank you for noticing. I did wonder if the tripC would be reading. 

: ) There is a whole school of us here on this um.. learning modality, let's say. Frankly, I think it's fine. Maybe it's because I come from that in part; some people come from the superior-strainingly-self-assured-impenetrable mode. Okie dokie; I avoid them, usually. I gots my way, they gotz theirs.  If we meet at a picnic we can still enjoy fatty fatty brownies together.  But I seem to stick with the loveable discursive, argumentative types. It takes one to love one? Dunno. But I like the some specific tossing and turning people do here and other styles/phases people go through I just avoid. Provokes me argumentativeness : )

Anyway, Sawfootsam and jetsom, flotsam and footsom, good luck. It is very challenging to sit with own mind. So many distractions including sleep. I still blow of meditation or sincere practice for stretches at a time. There's a little core group I have the pleasure of sitting with in the evenings and mornings and this is helpful. We seem to understand that, oddly, it's a challenge to show up twice a day just to listen to own mind.

Best wishes, sawfishes.
_________
Edit: Sawfussball, I would be personally remiss (not ideologically or faithfully remiss, but personally remiss) if I didn't raise the point of the law of cause-and-effect. Did you see "A Christmas Carol"? This is tangentially in honor of CCC who is in his country's deep mid-winter right now. Brrr- shiver, less sunscreen, CCC! Anyway, Morley visits Ebeneezer Sawfoot to say, "WoooooOOoooOooo <ghost chains rattling> whoooOooooOoo.. Sawfoooooooooot! SAAaaaaatfoooooot! [here, you look up from your mind's desk, which may be bearing DhO-ey discursive points], Sawwfffffooooooot! Let I warrrrrn you: daisy seeds grow daisy flooooooOOOooowersssss. Seeds of discursiveness sow discursivenesssssss; no prooooOOOooblem, Just knooooOOOOoooow seeds of studying mind grows understanding of miiiiiiiiinddddddd. Edenezeeer SawfooooOOOOooot, do Nooooooot waste time!" <chains rattle faintly off> (And Hollywood, I'm. not. for. hire. quel surpris. quel. surpris.).

This made my day... katy, I think you were the only person to realize sawfoot was being sarcastic.

Moderator comment, since it's that part of the DhO cycle again:

Just to be clear: lots of people are sarcastic, and just as many can perceive and appreciate sarcasm.

While there aren't any entrance exams for the DhO, I think it should not even be worth mentioning that if all one ever brings here is sarcasm, then that is not enough for participating here in the long run.

That this has to be mentioned is what it is. So please consider it mentioned.

Cheers,
Florian

Hi JC and Florian,

Florian:
Yeah, totally agree. And, JC, yeah, I see your point, though I'm actually not thinking if Sawfoot is sarcastic; I just think I relate sometimes to Sawfoot's process at present and I've comically thought of badges before. What I can see is that Sawfoot is expressing/creating Sawfoot's mind here because Sawfoot took time to think about it and write it out. ...and I can relate to Sawfoot's style from whence I come,but it's not that I recommend it.  

Other stages of practice and their expression (e.g., conceit) currently irk/distract me...not so much this.

Sawfoot, to continue to exhibit as such, sans meditative practice and effort, would be contrary to the purpose and available benefit of this site. It's just really not set up for the purpose of sustained argumentation. Though, true, even in "high and lofty" camps, people do find means to one-up and to argue, so you're not doing anything that doesn't also exist in the Big Kids camp.

It's just the DhO is set up to be a place for sincere practice, not politics or heirarchy or cutting down, and that is truly sweet. We put up with the ugly bits of each other's practice, in my opinion, because we know we're each practicing and that many behavioral expressions (e.g., debate, conceit, humility) are pretty natural outflows as one goes through the brain-of-potentials cabinet.

Perhaps if you practice, you would bring that practice effort here and you take sustained discursiveness and debate to a camp that loves and is designed for that? That would allow you to have rigorous and equal debate. Otherwise it can become a bit like insisting on playing basefull on a soccerfield amid avid soccer fans when there are lots of baseball fields and baseball fans within the same reach. But this doesn't mean "drinking the Kool-aid". I still harbor beaucoup de discursiveness and argumentation, but, truly now I first look at any such feeling or thought for "What am I getting out of it or trying to get out of it?" and "what am I creating?" I usually do that after I f*** something up a bit and think, "Could've seen that coming, stegersky."

Still I have seen for myself and in myself that different people have different stuff to vent before they settle into this simple practice (again and again) or move onto something that may work for themselves. So there's a lot of stuff I ignore here knowing that it may take a few months or years or existences for a tenacioulsy held feeling to pass.

Equally, DhO-bees, Sawfoot's means right now also doesn't have to land on anyone nor ignite into anything more than a small breeze. E.g., matches without fuel and dryness (replies) have a hard time starting fires.

So I hope Sawfoot does take up the opportunity to study methods of brain-spotting, understanding how mind works by watching its many bubbles of thought and feeling arise and pass. Knowing causality, it's useful to see what can be on the horizon for oneself as a result of one's own actions. But sometimes this kind of behavioral addiction has to really get painful before a person wants to change or just burns themselves up with the addictive habit.

Hi Pawel,

I think a separate sub-forum for the AF would be needed, with different moderators to the full enlightenement club, but yes, it would be awkward as Daniel would have admin rights to the whole forum. Maybe there is a need for a separate forum as Daniel recommends to avoid these kinds of issues.

I like your suggestions about trophies, arm hands and t-shirts. Thanks for the input.

I came up with a few ideas below (I particulary like the hat myself).

Maybe if there is enough interest I could come up with some more, and could start taking some orders for a group buy. Let me know.

Obviously we would need some kind of vetting system (again, TripleThink might be handy here?), e.g. to stop people who thought they were 4th path getting a t-shirt, when actually they were still stuck in 3rd.

The t-shirt and cap are great ideas.  Merchandising is often underutilized aspect of the dharma movement.  I could even help out with the marketing and sales aspects.  Will ask Daniel about this.

We need an 'angle', a way to get across our message to those who are important, but also create some secrecy so that the mob won't know what we're doing.  By being a bit secretive we can create "rarity value".  People will wonder about what it all means, "4th path??  What is this?" they will think.  And we will be able to smile at each other knowingly, because of our spiritual superiority.  Each new level should create more mysetery, not less.  A constant striving towards an unreachable goal. 

I have picked out a group of like-minded 'yes men' who can help as moderators (they will serve under me).  Strict moderation is key.  We need to stamp out opposing views and keep it very clean and homogenous.  There will be no tolerance for clowns, joking or a relaxed casualness.  There will be levels - lots of levels.  God I love levels.  I could cum just thinking about levels of progress and attainment.  Everyone should be striving for higher and higher attainments.  We will have awards and very sombre award ceremonies.  We have a pure message and we must strive to keep it pure and untainted.  Above all we as spiritual seekers must recognize that we are the most evolved beings on the earth and that being the case, we have a responsibility to lead the masses out of confusion and mediocrity.  When they are ready, they will come to us seeking answers.  We will admit them to our society if they pass our tests.

My t-shirt idea is a nemonic.  "IAIIABTY"  "I am important, I am better than you".  Just imagine the looks we would get from those who simply do not know.   I think $10000 per shirt will ensure only very very serious seekers are admitted.

The arHAT is truly hilarious: those things would be a big hit at Buddhist Geeks 2014, if anyone wants to have some printed up. I would buy one.

On a more serious note, the ironic thing is that the whole thing is about settling into this human body, this human mind, this ordinary life, and seeing it as it is.

It is about losing things more than gaining them, although there is some gain, obviously.

It is about being realistic and accepting more than about being grandiose.

It is about giving up ideals and spiritual dreams in favor of coming down to Earth and being right here, as it is, right now.

So odd that it is so hard to tell people this and to convince them that this is what it is about. You can say it again and again and it is like people have some cognitive deficit that makes it nearly impossible to hear. Why it is so hard to do is a very strange thing, isn't it?

Amazing that people will take it and run with and put people up on some pedistal just to throw things at them, when, in fact, this ordinary back pain, these ordinary human emotions, these things, seen clearly as they are, are the whole point. It is not a fancy thing.

So strange that one of the places on the internet that tries to be the most down-to-earth and realistic, the least bought into the preposterious ideals of awakening that don't hold up to reality testing, the place with the most explicit details about all the problems with the models, and some of the most straightforward and empowering and open set of discussions about how to actually attain to those things that do hold up to reality testing is still plagued by people who just see the whole thing as some absurd popularity and hierarchy contest and just react to that without benefitting from the amazing opportunities that this forum provides.