Those on this forum who have felt that they had their spiritual vibes lowered by me mentioning the Trappist beer I was drinking in some cafe while writing a few recent posts, you can relax. This is a beer-free post. Hell, it's a cafe-free post. I am sitting on a bench in a Zen garden near my house, and draw any sense of inspiration from the sound of water and the smell of trees and the landscaping, not from any beverage concocted by Catholic monks who may have strayed too far off the catechism and into the study of alchemy.
That said, the subject of this Zen garden rap, inspired by its stillness -- present even when full of groups of laughing and screaming children or teens chugging energy drinks -- is the frequent absence of that stillness on "spiritual" Internet forums. This is a generic rap, about what I see as a generic phenomenon. I'm not rapping about Fairfield Life per se, or about any of its denizens. Except one, and I'll name him explicitly later. If anyone else feels that I'm talking about them, I'm not, except generically. They, on the other hand, are free to go batshit crazy in their responses to this post if they feel comfortable with what that might say about them. What I've noticed is that many 20-to-40-year spiritual seekers and practitioners of high spiritual arts, some of which would claim to be "the highest" such art, think nothing of going slightly batshit crazy and reacting angrily to someone who has done nothing more than believe something different than they believe on the Internet. About their spiritual teachers. About their paths. About their behavior or the behavior of others on their path. About some nitpick of esoteric philosophy that they or their path is "right" about, while everyone else is "wrong." Whatever. The individual catalysts for the batshit crazy lashing-out moments don't really interest me that much. Truth be told, most of the individuals doing the lashing out don't interest me that much. The lashing out -- on a forum that describes itself as "spiritual" -- does. I mean, WTF? What IS it that leads some long-term spiritual seekers who would in other circumstances talk equanimity in all things and the value of non-attachment that their path creates to suddenly fail to walk their own talk, and not only act in an attached manner, but in an angrily attached manner? You see this on almost every "spiritual" forum I've found on the Net. In some cases I know the people writing these posts, and I know that they would never in a million years lash out at someone in the same room with them over a spiritual nitpick, but they do it on the Net. It's as if "flaming" really IS a Net phenomenon, as many sociologists have suggested it is. The most fascinating thing about this phenomenon, from my point of view, is that bystanders on the same forum -- themselves 20-to-40-year spiritual practitioners -- seem to feel the same way about "piling on." They cheer for the flamers and congratulate them on decimating the person who wrote the heretical idea or opinion being flamed. They applaud the ad hominems and the attempts at character assassination, and add their own. And they see nothing the slightest bit off about this. Again, WTF? And what about the person whose written words provided the original catalyst to the flamefest? How do they react when someone switches into hyperdrive and tries to rip them a new asshole? Do they react "in kind," and get into a long, protracted I'm-right-you're-wrong-and-besides-you-suck fest with the person whose buttons got pushed, or do they lay low and actually demonstrate some of the equanimity their path speaks about? On this forum I can think of one person who has consistently demonstrated this kind of equanimity. Its founder, Rick Archer. For years I've watched people take potshots at the things he believes in, or the spiritual teachers he considers neat, or even at him personally, and he's consistently reacted similarly to the Zen monk in the famous "Is that so?" story. He may correct a misstatement if he knows it to be mis-, and he may present a balancing view, but in my considered opinion he almost always does so with balance. Nothing seems to get him riled up. I say good on him. He walks the talk of his particular path. That gets me *interested* in his path, as possibly having something of worth in it. The behavior of those who get their buttons pushed and fly into attachment-fests on a regular basis, not so much. Some might call this judgmental on my part, and that it reveals terrible flaws in my character and in my integrity, or in any ideas I may rap about. Some may in fact do so in response to this post. I answer in advance: "Is that so?"
