my idea of pragmatic dharma

Never mind.

why are you complaining about the dho so much. who cares about the dho. this is an unappealing way to live, erecting some catechism against something that your imagination is dredging up.

this is a library of practices, first and foremost. who cares about the dho. who even cares about some stuff i've been saying. this is for practice.

Deklan wrote:

So I don't want to be down on PD, transparency and openness. That said I feel strongly that the whole tumult around actualism and Kenneth's 'direct mode' and related experiments (for just two salient examples) reflect a massive eruption of shadow material in the PD scene that was not at all surprising to me, given what I could see as the dogmas of PD it actually appeared completely inevitable. 'The return of the repressed' is a fascinating thing.

By this do you mean it was an attempt to deny our humanity by denying our affect, or do you mean it was a return to the relatively neglected body, emotions, and the enjoyment of 'content'? If neither then I'm not sure where you're going with this and would appreciate clarification. (I'm not trying to start a PCE shitstorm; I'd just like to understand this POV)

Also, can you clarify the dogmas of PD?

For one simple example Deklan at that time 'limited emotional range' models were explicitly rejected by the major PD players such as Kenneth and Daniel. Daniel talks about this in a podcast with Tarin and apologized for it, actually! So that would be one dogma.

The return of the repressed in this case would be strong claims of emotional transformation/elimination. The swing to that extreme (in the form of NEW dogmas about PCEs or Direct Mode, for instance) seems (although many of the folks who swung to that extreme have not been, that I am aware, transparent about this) to have led to some folks repressing emotions in some way with also predictable consequences. Unfortunately in the latter case as I say not many are willing to talk about their experience of emotions returning openly. That's one example of what I was talking about.

For the sake of clarity, I would define a 'dogma' as a description/model/map/concept that is taken and meant literally and absolutely. In contrast I would point to a way of taking descriptions (etc, that's my favorite current catch-all phrase for these phenomena) in pragmatic or poetic senses, i.e., with an insight into their emptiness (that they cannot match the complexity, interwovenness, and openness of the raw territory of experience-- and yes, even the description of experience into this dichotomy of description-indescribable is a mere description, not a dogma).

I think the important point to me is the way this plays out in group dynamics moreso than individual dynamics. In the latter case anyone with a solid beginner insight practice has had some glimpses (at least) of the 'emptiness of descriptions', the difference between the map and the territory. This individual dynamic is pretty clear. The role of dogmas in group dynamics is more interesting to me in how that creates in-and-out groups, power dynamics, double standards, and the like, and then how all these group dynamics create feedback loops back into individual dynamics in terms of identity formation (i.e., "I am in the in-group, the out group, or whatever"). It's been instructive to me to see individuals (like me, for example) who clearly have solid practices and phenomenological insights on the level of personal experience still fall into these group dynamics and how it is possible to form very solid identities on subtle emotional-social levels around these group dynamics of belonging-rejection etc. and how one relates to the dogmas of a given group.

I hope this clarifies my statement for you
ETA: I added the 'like me for example' in reference to the falling into group dynamics patterns moreso than the solid practice and insight clause. Kind of a damned if I do damned if I don't syntactical issue in that whole sentence lol.

also, I don't think its really sensical to refer to it as a "cult of personality". this seems quite judgmental to me. people may have their """baggage""" but the important part of the equation is that they all want to kill it on cushion.

Why do you care if there is some kind flair surrounding that? The only thing that matters is if it works or not. If people are learning from their own experience or not.

Two good Vince Horn tweets and relevant, too:

"The problem with most peer-based communities is there are very few ways to acknowledge the naturally occurring hierarchies within them."

"The problem with teacher-led learning communities is they can often consolidate power for the wrong reasons & overlook well-trained talent."

I don't get the first one. The second one is cool

Femtosecond wrote: I don't get the first one. The second one is cool

The first one: In communities that claim its members are all equal, there will inevitably be people who end up asserting leadership. The trouble for such groups is that it is not acknowledged.

I guess, I don't necessarily see that as a problem. What are people supposed to do? We can't just become beings unbound by time and enhanced with artificial intelligence. Its just the conditions of life

The point, I think, is when not acknowledged, the informal hierarchies may select 'leaders' for various reasons other than talent. It can become a kind of popularity contest- in groups and out-groups- the rules of which have more to do with subtle social cues, seductive feelings of belonging and exclusion, identity and otherness.

It's hard to admit it is happening.

The identity we form whether of being 'in' or 'out' can feel very solid. The reactions we exhibit, conditioned by these subterranean power dynamics, can feel very 'clear' from the inside even when they are oppressive from the outside.

The conversations that happen, and indeed the double standards which can emerge, can be difficult to acknowledge because they are now not simply things happening out 'there' in the group, but in 'here' in my identity. To be transparent about them means to question my identity. See, it can really muddy the waters of how a group functions when its rules and roles are not openly acknowledged as such.

Plus people get resentful when someone supposed to be an equal exercises authority--where does he get off? When someone is openly accepted as a leader (a department chair, for example), others can get on with their work without having to challenge him or her. Other animals are like this: they will expend energy fighting for dominance, but once someone wins, everyone gets on with their lives.

Yeah, but, I guess I still don't see it as a problem. It is just the character of these groups. It's just where the prerogatives are. Something about assuming there is a problem outside of oneself when it comes to dharma type situations seems to be missing the point for me. With other types circles obviously this idea has weight. But with dharma circles what you do just reflects your ambitions. As far as I can tell, the operative principle is that pragmatic dharma is just about practice. Anything falling short of this is totally transparent, you just get on with your practice, who cares? The people in charge know their ambitions, maybe they rise to their ambitions, or maybe those ambitions change. At the end of the day it is just whether or not you do your own practice that you care. If you want to represent this to other people and set your practice forth as an example, you know if you're doing that or not. If you don't, others are just left to whatever their situation is. The whole thing is self regulating from my point of view. If you want to do something about it, then do something about it.

Saying that it is a problem is like saying dukkha is just some kind of formality around the hierarchy, when the true way to look at things is it's the other way around. Whatever hierarchy is there should serve to kill the dukkha, not sidestep it.

Obviously this is coming from the point of view that supporting people's practice is transparent insofar as if it is or isn't happening. The whole thing is transparent. There isn't even a material aim for it. Of course sometimes there are - whatever, those people are just the materialists in one form or another. Can't you see that? How does it even matter.

My point of view is if you're moved enough to support real practice in some way, you'll do it. If this leaves you out somehow, then all we can say is technology has not advanced enough to accommodate the particular situation. If you're looking for more than that - advancing your insight practice - then really what are you looking for? Can't you tell that's not what's happening here, whatever it is you want this to be other than your insight practice?

I think time has something to do with it, weirdly, insight practice has a tendency to sort through the crap on its own. So is a community built entirely on fostering insight practice not transparent in some way? Or does the person just want a little pet thing of some kind.

Femtosecond wrote: As far as I can tell, the operative principle is that pragmatic dharma is just about practice. Anything falling short of this is totally transparent, you just get on with your practice, who cares?

Femto, I don't think I quite understand what you mean by "Anything falling short of this is totally transparent" here. Are you using it in the sense of "it doesn't matter?" Also, what does it mean for something to fall short of practice?

I'm not sure my comment is in the same direction as your intent, but in my view, there is nothing outside of practice, so nothing can ever fall short of it. For example, understanding and dealing with group dynamics in a constructive, helpful way is practice. As Jake points out, this can be quite tough. When I find myself in a situation where participating in a group challenges existing concepts of authority (mine or others'), it's an excellent opportunity for me to practice with that.

For me, this is what the practice of sila is pointing at. Namely, in this situation, what is a skillful way of being in the world so as to decrease friction (mine and others') and to increase compassion, kindness, empathy, and non-reactivity?

Apologies if this is off-track and not where your meaning goes.

Yeah, that is sort of what I am saying. How does it matter? It's obvious what's what. Why is there even a problem? In my opinion practice isn't about making everything as nice as possible - those things will just fall where they may. From my point of view practice is about killing it on cushion and reducing suffering - can you really do that for someone else by changing your manner or something? Or can you do it for someone by representing what's possible with practice, and making that as straightforward and wide reaching as possible.

You can't solve people's personal problems unless they are committed to real practice.

Femtosecond wrote: Yeah, that is sort of what I am saying. How does it matter? It's obvious what's what. Why is there even a problem? In my opinion practice isn't about making everything as nice as possible - those things will just fall where they may. From my point of view practice is about killing it on cushion and reducing suffering - can you really do that for someone else but changing your manner or something? Or can you do it for someone by representing what's possible with practice, and making that as straightforward and wide reaching as possible.

Now that's what I'm talking about. I would add that you can represent what's possible with your life not just your practice. You need to be killing it in your everyday life and not just on the cushion. Let your life serve as an example to others rather than a warning.

Yeah, but how do you reconcile that with those who have overweening and unbalanced expectations of what a life should be? This is getting in the way of practice. How do you address this? Is it at all possible?

I think you nailed it when you said we can't solve other people's problems for them... in the case of overwheening expectations about what a life should be, we can redirect ourselves to being present in the life we actually have and starting there. It's (ethics) not about having the best circumstances, it's about learning to have responses to whatever circumstances that arise that are more informed by insight and peacefulness.

To perhaps sidetrack a bit, I was reading a Facebook post by a radical-politics friend of a FB-only 'friend' who is an economist. The subject is fairly irrelevant; the fact that her view was that of a radical-political-queer theorist was what lit up something for me.

And that something was that I have very little interest in the lenses by which we define ourselves: psychological, political, religious, gender/sexual praxis, spirituality as differentiated from religion... I'm not about to argue that this lack of interest is preferable to being interested-- just that uninterested is how I find myself at this juncture. And that while I am not interested in how the view is FRAMED, I am quite interested in what the view IS, and how it functions in my life.

Just noodling here; I haven't reached any conclusions or even formed much by way of hypotheses.

Also remembering Steven Tainers pith instruction: "Meditation is whatever you do that implements the view." And our mutual teacher, Ming's stressing the importance of 'View teachings' in his presentation of Chinese medicine.

Kate Gowen wrote: while I am not interested in how the view is FRAMED, I am quite interested in what the view IS, and how it functions in my life.

What would you say is the difference?

while I am not interested in how the view is FRAMED, I am quite interested in what the view IS, and how it functions in my life.

"What would you say is the difference?" -- Every3rdthought

For me, the difference is that between a philosophical or conceptual view, and a literal sighting of "things-as-they-are."

For most of the last 15 years, I've been working with the idea that, fundamentally, awakening is a matter of having "nothing left to prove." The framing-- political, psychological, religious, spiritual, etc.-- is all about proving something, on the relative level. It is about proving that "I am... this or that or the other (OK in some particular terms, according to a partial view)."That's all very well, as far as it goes; but it stops short of being "the basis/all-ground." It stops short of being open-eyed in Reality. It stops short of a whole-being understanding of "I AM."

Philosophically, that may sound silly; but the experience ... is not. Or at least not ONLY silly; also profound and shattering and transfiguring. And liberating.