Hello to All Members of Zen_Forum, Posting my understanding of Zen on Buddhist forums became part of my Zen practice many years ago and it had a profound effect on my mind. It forced my mind to go deeper into zazen mixing Western psychological insights with Zen insights gleaned from the The Hsin Hsin Ming of the Third Patriarch <http://www.mountainman.com.au/hsinhsin.html> and The Sutra Spoken by The Sixth Patriarch <http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bb/bb25.htm> .
My conceit became subjugated to expressing my insights of the BuddhaDharma in a modern Western English context and my postings are the results of this and zazen. So my postings are self sustaining meditations from my Zen practice and I post them on Buddhist forums as a sort of potluck thinga gathering of people where each person or group of people may contribute a dish of food (posting) prepared by the person or the group of people, to be shared among the group. There were and are foreseeable consequences to doing this as famously expressed by a statement attributed to Jesus, "Do not give what is holy [profound] to the dogs [cynics, faultfinders]; nor cast your pearls [insights] before swine [ignorance], lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces." And the American mystic Vernon Howard once said, "The primary motivation of the average human being is to hurt someone else in order to give himself a false thrill; so that he feels what he calls good which is self destruction." Bullies are problematic at message forums. Their immaturity can destroy a potluck partythey bring nothing to the table but disruption which they apparently relishand intelligent guests wisely withdraw. Being with the immature is like going on a long trip with an enemy. ~ Buddha Bullies by default 'ban' interested intelligent seekers from posting. Who wants to watch ignorance flaunt itself and flout basic humane communications? Those who know don't arguethey have no need to. Those who argue don't knowif they did they wouldn't argue. I had posted at Zen_Forum before but my postings triggered such resentment that I left canceling the email notices but leaving the Special Notices button checked. I received the Special Notice Posting and Replying - Draft from Bill! that indicates a basic change in moderation is being implemented so I decided with this posting to try again at Zen_Forum. In one of the replies Edgar said, "I also encourage all other lurker members to post also now that they needn't worry about overly harsh responses ." I had to look up lurker to find out what it meant and realized I wasn't lurkingI was gone. But now I'm curious as to how many actual viewers/lurkers/members there are at Zen_Forum? The Group Information Info lists 395 members when I'm in Messages and 632 members when I click Home. I count only eight user names in the replies to Bill!'s Posting and Replying Policy - Draft so I'd like to request all members of Zen_Forum viewing this posting right now to simply acknowledge this with a reply to this posting and any comments regarding this matter. The appropriateness of a potluck posting is indicated by what the other guests do with itthe message is the response you getand there's no arguing with that! Thank you, pudgala2
