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I love it..........
It is my interest primarily in meditation, rather than Buddhism, which brought me to this forum. I am just making some personal observations here without any specific intent to put forward any point or arguments. I may be wrong in many or all observations that I have made. There is no intention at all to hurt anyone’s feelings.
2. I suppose almost all the visitors here are not Buddhist by birth but have developed interest in Buddhism at some point of their life.
3. When I see the discussions here as an outsider, I find that there is no unanimity amongst the contributors as to what basically Buddhism is all about. For most of them, Buddhism is unique and has no parallels in other religions.
4. There is a visible bias against the religion of birth, and a clear preference for Buddhism, a religion later adopted. Obviously, Buddhism must have been more attractive for them to migrate to it or follow its principles.
5. There are two very distinguishable classes amongst the contributors here. A small percentage considers meditation to be the primary tool to work with, while a larger percentage would give it only a secondary importance ( something which you may do or not do) but consider eight-fold path to be the primary tool to work with. There is also a small number of contributors who appear to believe that meditation automatically leads one to eight-fold path without any specific effort.
6. Language used by some contributors is sometimes rough, harsh and somewhat violent.
There appear to be more teachers than learners on the forum. Little tolerance is shown to opposite views, most of the times – an arguing student is told to shut up. Moderators themselves too sometimes use the language which leaves much to be desired.
7. I love this forum and will continue to be associated with it.....
2. I suppose almost all the visitors here are not Buddhist by birth but have developed interest in Buddhism at some point of their life.
3. When I see the discussions here as an outsider, I find that there is no unanimity amongst the contributors as to what basically Buddhism is all about. For most of them, Buddhism is unique and has no parallels in other religions.
4. There is a visible bias against the religion of birth, and a clear preference for Buddhism, a religion later adopted. Obviously, Buddhism must have been more attractive for them to migrate to it or follow its principles.
5. There are two very distinguishable classes amongst the contributors here. A small percentage considers meditation to be the primary tool to work with, while a larger percentage would give it only a secondary importance ( something which you may do or not do) but consider eight-fold path to be the primary tool to work with. There is also a small number of contributors who appear to believe that meditation automatically leads one to eight-fold path without any specific effort.
6. Language used by some contributors is sometimes rough, harsh and somewhat violent.
There appear to be more teachers than learners on the forum. Little tolerance is shown to opposite views, most of the times – an arguing student is told to shut up. Moderators themselves too sometimes use the language which leaves much to be desired.
7. I love this forum and will continue to be associated with it.....
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Comments
When we present our understanding on a forum like this; it just is another way of leaning. None of us claim authority as a teacher. Not as far as I know.
In many classes I followed they divide the class in couples or other small groups to work with questions. The smaller groups come back and share with the entire class what they found for an answer.
Why don’t they stick to the model of many students - asking questions - and one teacher supplying the answers?
I think that’s because we learn a lot more from thinking for ourselves.
After we have taken in the information, we need to put it all together for ourselves, formulate our understanding in our own words, and apply this understanding on new material.
The way I see it that’s what we are doing on this forum. Learning by formulating and sharing our understanding.
A complicating factor is that we’re not all rooted in the same Buddhist tradition. So often our discussions do not represent differences in understanding of the studied material. They represent the different material we studied.
Sometimes a clash is not so bad. It clears things up, hopefully.
In regard to point 4 - this IS a buddhist discussion board lol.
In regard to point 7 - I hope to learn more from you soon, friend