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MCTB Expansion Project

MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
10/22/12 4:41 AM
Dear All,

I was wondering if those of you who consider yourself on the high-achiever end of things, with strong practice, solid knowledge of meditation theory, texts, practice, etc. would be interested in joining together to help expand out MCTB with more perspectives, takes on things, etc.

MCTB is already here in the wiki, and I was thinking of making this wiki version have lots of people's comments and additions and notes and takes on the basic material, text references, individual experiences, critiques, enhancements, expansions, etc.

This will be moderated by me, obviously, as it is my book, and I want the level of quality to be high, but I want it to be broader, include a wider set of points of view, so as to make something better than it currently is and deeper than I alone could come up with, and if people have valid critiques or contradictory points of view, I am for that also, so long as there is depth, reason, sense and practical benefit in those.

As you have read the thing, you probably had things you would have liked to see added, changed, or later had things you might add. I want that if you are willing to add it and it is good.

What I imagine it looking like is the core text with a lot of links to people's additional wiki-page comments, so for example:

"blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [Tommy's take on blah][Ian's take on blah][Steph's take on blah]" etc.

Just to give examples, and not that those people necessarily will be participating, but people know those names.

It can obviously go in other directions, actualism, Tibetan, Zen, energetic stuff, whatever, just so we are really enhancing each section with a diversity of useful stuff that will make people more able to get something practical and beneficial out of it.

Basically, this is group-sourcing the second edition, albeit an edition that will just exist here, I suspect, and will be done for the greater good.

We could even add other chapters that don't yet exist, or appendices, or whatever people think is useful that also makes some basic sense to me.

I will be adding some parts also, likely, and may want to negotiate with some of the parts regarding how they are done, and it will probably at least be a fun and useful conversation, and build some community as well, which is good also.

This will obviously be an experiment in group process, which can often get interesting, but this is what is inspiring me at the moment, so I thought I would take the risk and go with it.

This book and the writing in it will be done for free as the book will be available for free here online, just so everyone getting into this is aware of that from the beginning.

Basic format for entries, as each wiki page needs its own unique identifier:

Link should look like [[ Wiki Page | Displayed Wiki Page Name]]

With Wiki Page being the actual link name and Wiki Page Name being what is displayed as the link.

After putting in that link, you can click on the red link to go to the new page and edit the page with the information you want to add. Be sure to label each page with your name at the top so they know whose take on things it is. We should probably come up with bios for those involved so people have a sense of their perspective sources and backgrounds to help frame their comments.

Getting used to the Creole syntax that the wiki uses is relatively easy.

The Wiki Page Name should have your Name and a Unique Topic Name.

The Displayed Wiki Page Name should be the readable version of that, and may be the same.

For instance [[Tommy on 2nd Jhana | Tommy on 2nd Jhana]] where as in this case they are the same, and you could actually just do [[Tommy on 2nd Jhana]], which displays the same for both.

Or, you could do something like [[http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/rest of link | DhO Thread on the Topic]] if you thought there was a cool thread that really related to the topic well.

Or even [[http://someotherwebsite.com/coolarticle | Some Other Websites Cool Article on the Topic]]

Anyone interested in this will need to become a Wiki Author: let me know who wants to do this. If no one is interested, I can do it myself, but it would be more fun in a group, I think.

Thanks for considering this,

Daniel

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
3/22/12 6:16 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Though I have found many things in MCTB to disagree with, I also think that, restricting the discussion to the goal of MCTB (guiding readers to a specific set of attainments), most of those disagreements vanish; it is well-written, well-conceived, stunningly to-the-point, and thus would be difficult to improve on.

What, specifically, is your aim in revising MCTB? What specific things do you want revised-MCTB to do that it doesn't currently do?

In terms of the goals of MCTB, the main improvement that I would suggest is to drastically emphasize the Simple Model, maybe expand the first-person descriptions of what its stages tend to be like, etc. I think it lends to less confusion than trying to count path-moments etc., and may make for more accurate self-diagnosis too.

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
3/22/12 12:28 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
Thanks for your input.

Personal descriptions are exactly the sort of thing I am looking for, so if you are in a mood to lend those, great.

Also, you have critiqued its take on jhana, and if you were interested in adding your take, that would be good also.

Up for it?

Let me know,

Daniel

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
3/22/12 1:44 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
To clarify, what this looks like to me is a full book on the wiki, with pages that branch off into commentary from other people (possibly pdf, but not print, because the links will need to be integrated). Is that correct?

I remember thinking that having a fully functional active wiki would open this material up to a lot of people who are a little apprehensive about reading a meditation book (or book in general), but given the chance to expose themselves to different parts of theory piecemeal over articles they looked up out of curiosity, they'd jump right in.

I'm interested, but don't consider myself a high-achiever, and won't have a whole lot to add content-wise.
But, if needed, I would be happy to help with editing, and suggestions on what content to include with the goal of making the book as a whole more useful.

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
3/22/12 1:59 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Greetings,

I've been an occasional lurker since first encountering MCTB a couple of years ago, but this is my first post.

I am very excited to hear that you will be expanding on the project by taking advantage of wiki format. There are clearly a number of astute and knowledgeable posters on the forum whose perspectives can only enrich what is already an amazingly useful work. It will be interesting to seeing what directions the project branches out into as additional voices contribute breadth and depth, and I look forward to reading the new content.

May the experiment in group process continue to be inspired and inspiring!

abc

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
3/31/12 12:47 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
I would like it if I could see which sections of MCTB have been edited as part of the expansion project. I have found MCTB very useful and am very interested to read any revised or expanded sections. Thanks to anyone who can make this possible (or tell me in what way it is already possible).

Terry

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
3/31/12 11:57 PM as a reply to Terry Farrah.
Actually, sad to say, nothing happened, as you can see.

Thus, I may just do it myself, which is fine, but I thought that a community with its diversity of skills, perspectives, and takes on things could do better than just me, but apparently interest is low, which is to say nearly zero, at least in telling me that people wanted to add content.

I am will have a bit of time soon to start on this, and if you wish I will update here with the sections I work on.

Daniel

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/1/12 12:28 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:
Actually, sad to say, nothing happened, as you can see.

Thus, I may just do it myself, which is fine, but I thought that a community with its diversity of skills, perspectives, and takes on things could do better than just me, but apparently interest is low, which is to say nearly zero, at least in telling me that people wanted to add content.

I am will have a bit of time soon to start on this, and if you wish I will update here with the sections I work on.


I would have interest in participating, but not on a consistent basis. (Not that I don't have interest, it's more a matter of limited time.) Like, if I have access, and I see something I can feel confident changing/adding to, I will do it if it's easy to do, but not if it's hard (like hard to get to).

What about just backing up the current MCTB wiki version, making that uneditable, and then making the new one editable by everyone who is logged into DhO? (Uses the login as credential). Might encourage people to join if they can just edit something easily, bit-by-bit, wikipedia style, and it seems we don't have a huge mass of people editing so it would avoid some of the problems wikipedia has. And if it gets too bad then just revert to what you wanted to do anyway - each person requests permission themselves.

Also, what is the aim of the new book, as End in Sight alluded to? Better info on just the 4 paths defined there, or including anything e.g. Kenneth's stages, Actualism/Actual Freedom, etc?

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/1/12 8:30 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:
Also, you have critiqued its take on jhana, and if you were interested in adding your take, that would be good also.


I can't easily see a way to explain my take without going a fair distance away from the concepts and models that MCTB uses. Depending on the ways in which you wanted to revise MCTB, this might be less of a problem, but as it stands now, it does seem to me that anything that I write would be moderately out of place.

So, the question to you is, how much divergence (in that sense) are you willing to tolerate?

Maybe the simplest way to expand on the issue of jhana is simply to link to the explanations given by teachers who focus on it (e.g. Ajahn Brahm), explicitly noting that conceiving of what they're talking about as a "samatha-heavy" variation of what MCTB talks about is an assumption to be tested (rather than assumed based on accepting the concepts and models that MCTB uses), and possibly one which the teachers themselves would reject.

Culadasa's 10 stages of concentration is also a useful thing to link to.

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/1/12 5:28 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
I'd be happy to contribute as much as possible. I've been working on a portuguese translation of MCTB and will make sure to take notes on the sections that I belive could be better, or to which I would offer a different take.

If you have plans to expand the book further, an appendix containing your own take on 'stages on the path of actual freedom' and practises to attain it, all sistematized like the rest of the book, would be a very valuable addition.

Bernardo

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/1/12 7:39 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
@EIS: You mean from your narrow reading of MCTB, a book which includes a wide range, and includes that jhanas can be hard or soft, samatha heavy or concentration heavy, and links to numerous outside sources as essential reading material, and those contain a wide range of opinions on jhana themselves.

So, if you wish to conceive of MCTB as being narrow, then please feel free to add what you feel is outside it.

If you realize that MCTB leaves it wide open, then please feel free to work within that, the effect being the same, but the way you personally perceive it will be different, and it is all one to me.

Interestingly, last night I had a rare 14 hours to sleep and meditate in a row, and I chanced into extremely hard formless realms, territory I didn't even incline to, and it had been a while since I had visited it, as that is not what I am generally doing these days, but it just showed up, and I still think that the primordial consciousness or ground of being that B Alan Wallace talks about, as well as the stable, highly indescribable place you talk about, must be 8th, which, when hit properly, has an unusual stability to, like a silent singularity of incomprehensible something yet not something, a nearly nothing-going-on-ness to it that yet is highly profound and defies easy dimensional description and seems nearly a-sensate, which is of course absurd and yet it hints at that anyway if not quite delivering, and, given that the entrance to it hints at all sorts of things along the way, wide open space, brilliant blazing consciousness, profound nothingness, and then that, one can easily project all sorts of attributes onto it from those, as is so often done and understandably so, as the entrance through those can be really fast (less than a few seconds), and one may emerge the same way. Should you be into that discussion, perhaps start a new thread.

I predict you will disagree, but that is what keeps this interesting from my point of view, or I wouldn't have opened the thing up, as I realize there is a lot out there that is differently conceived of, regardless of whether or not it is actually different, and I think the conversation would be educational to those reading, as that is the sort of stuff that people often don't get: the many ways to think about this stuff, the controversies, but done well and a at high level, etc. Sometimes what is most revealing about controversies is the underlying assumptions that get taken as a given by both parties, such as these things being possible by ordinary mortals, etc.

**************

Regarding alternate models: one little political thing: before including Kenneth's stuff in MCTB or adding it on as commentary, might want to ask him what he thinks of that before you do it. I personally am fine with it.

***************

Regarding opening it up to everyone: I am not quite that bold yet, as I want to see how this will go, and I don't know how to lock some pages and not others, so what I want is a smaller group initially to see how that goes, and there is no obligation, just the opportunity, and no minimum to add or time pressure, just as it comes to you, and as I want the comments added as links to separate pages, it shouldn't blow the flow too badly hopefully, and if people want more flow, other online versions exist

Again, should anyone actually be interested, let me know that you are by email or some other definitive method such that I can allow you access.

Thanks again for considering,

Daniel

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/1/12 11:50 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:
... if you wish I will update here with the sections I work on.

I do so wish!
Terry

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/2/12 1:37 AM as a reply to Bernardo Vasconcelos.
Alright, we have two so far:

BCDEFG and Bernardo.

Thanks for offering,

D

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/2/12 3:59 AM as a reply to Terry Farrah.
Alright, so tonight I made a few small changes, among them:

Finishing up all links to the next chapter, something I should have done long ago.
Adding a link to Gary Weber on the Thought Model page and to Bernadette Roberts on the God Model page.
Adding a link to Amazon for people to purchase TA Today, which really is a great book.
Adding a link to Kenneth Folk's site at one point.
Adding a link to my essay on the A&P which is already on the Discussion page, but I thought it would be in the wiki linked to in the A&P section, as it fills that out.
Adding a very brief and to-be-finished-when-I-have-time link to a brief comment on Actualism in the Emotional Models section.

Those are the major ones.

There will be more coming,

Daniel

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/2/12 10:41 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:
@EIS: You mean from your narrow reading of MCTB, a book which includes a wide range, and includes that jhanas can be hard or soft, samatha heavy or concentration heavy, and links to numerous outside sources as essential reading material, and those contain a wide range of opinions on jhana themselves.

So, if you wish to conceive of MCTB as being narrow, then please feel free to add what you feel is outside it.

If you realize that MCTB leaves it wide open, then please feel free to work within that, the effect being the same, but the way you personally perceive it will be different, and it is all one to me.


Have you ever attained something that corresponds more closely to what I describe as 2nd / 3rd jhana (i.e. minus the orgasmic overwhelming pleasantness-that's-unpleasant, and the narrowness that you attribute to second, and the out-of-phase quality you attribute to 3rd, while retaining extreme levels of happiness and pleasure [piti / sukha], as appropriate in each, far beyond any typical experience that one might have in life?) We have discussed this before but I don't recall any follow-up concerning it.

If you can attain those things and can attest to their basic similarity with what's described in MCTB, I would be more inclined to take the former view in writing something, and if not, I would continue to be inclined to take the latter view in writing something. As this is directly relevant to how I would contribute to the wiki re: jhana, let me know what you find, as your schedule permits, and we can discuss it then if things are still unclear at that point. (PM me or start a new thread.)

As for what you wrote concerning 8th, I can't say I really relate to it, as it stands.

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/2/12 1:02 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel, maybe not the best place for this, but I think that making the The DhO Wiki closer to the actual wikipedia in layout would make it much more usable to new-comers. A multi-language support would also enable some of us to work on the translation of the articles right on the web, and make it possible to have a single article translated by more than one individual. A much more dynamic process.

Besides that, I belive some extra features enhacing the profile - like the ones you announced some time ago: past retreat experience, current assesment of insights attained - could give some extra credibility and personality to the articles by different users.

I know that you're probably busy working with the material itself and that all this related to the website could seem unnecessary and downright boring, but let us think of this in the long run. A full blown Meditation Wikipedia - DhO Style.

Bernardo

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/3/12 12:05 AM as a reply to Bernardo Vasconcelos.
When we moved from WetPaint to this platform (Liferay), it was to have a wiki.

We looked at a lot of wiki formats, including MediaWiki, the platform Wikipedia runs on, and the tech crew and I at the time had a lot of discussion about this, and finally we decided to go here for some of its capabilities, such as discussion forum capabilities, communities, and other reasons. I am not saying this was necessarily the right decision, but MediaWiki was considered, and it is obviously a good platform, but we didn't go that way.

What functionality do you wish to have that our Wiki doesn't provide? It is a pretty good wiki, I think, and I have been able to make it whatever I have wanted, which hasn't been elaborate, but has been sufficient, but perhaps there is something you have noticed that you want that it will not do?

Strangely, it has been really hard to get people interested in the wiki. I periodically post something asking people to add stuff and join up, and I usually get no response at all, so that I have gotten two so far has been unusually high turnout, sad as that is. If anyone has any thoughts on what is going wrong, I am interested in those thoughts.

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/3/12 4:16 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:

Strangely, it has been really hard to get people interested in the wiki. I periodically post something asking people to add stuff and join up, and I usually get no response at all, so that I have gotten two so far has been unusually high turnout, sad as that is. If anyone has any thoughts on what is going wrong, I am interested in those thoughts.

The threshold is too big. Why not make it so that everyone can contribute but admin/mod approval is required before any changes are published?

A team of individuals often manages the web content of a portal where some are allowed to create and edit content, while others must review and approve the content before it can be published to the live site. Liferay includes a full workflow engine (that can also be easily switched with an external 3rd party engine), which can be used to coordinate how content is reviewed and published.

In addition, Liferay allows other types of data to require an approval process. Documents, Wiki posts, blogs, etc. can also be required to go through a workflow. Using Liferay's workflow for other types of documents creates a powerful team collaboration platform.

http://www.liferay.com/products/liferay-portal/features/cms

Also there's a lot unused or outdated pages around the DhO portal, including Liferay features that are enabled but never used, like blogs. It's easy to get the impression that everything outside the messageboard is a read-once-and-forget type of deal, and that includes the wiki. If everyone can edit that also provides users with an incentive to actually use and read the wiki.

There could also be a "Recent posts" equivalent for the wiki as a way to draw attention to it.

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/3/12 1:22 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Heya Dan,

Were you were referring to me or Stef Dunning above? As far as what I could contribute, I'm not sure. I had been using the actualism method pretty strictly, then for a while incorporated vipassana not frequently formally sitting, mostly daily life paying attention in that general way.. and more recently back to pretty strictly just actualism. I think I probably have far more breadth of experience with actualism than any of the Buddhist traditions, but I see the Actual Freedom Trust folks as likely having issue with people publishing about their method. They seem to want to keep a very tight handle on what is said about how to practice in that way, the goals of the practice, and the results of practicing well in accordance with the method (not a criticism, I understand if they want to maintain a certain standard for what they have done). Thoughts/suggestions (on what I wrote here or other stuff you think I could contribute that I might not have thought of)?

Steph

RE: MCTB Expansion Project
Answer
4/3/12 1:30 PM as a reply to Pål S..
Pål S.:
Daniel M. Ingram:

Strangely, it has been really hard to get people interested in the wiki. I periodically post something asking people to add stuff and join up, and I usually get no response at all, so that I have gotten two so far has been unusually high turnout, sad as that is. If anyone has any thoughts on what is going wrong, I am interested in those thoughts.

The threshold is too big.

This is my thought, too, which is why I was suggesting letting it be a free-for-all, at first.

The way I use the DhO, when I type in 'd' in my browser window, it auto-completes to dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/recent_posts, then I hit ENTER, and I'm at the recent posts page. Then, I read those. The rest of the site practically does not exist, for me, and if other people use the site the same way, that might be the issue. It's just not featured prominently enough. I only ever see the wiki if I'm googling to find a specific post and a wiki hit comes up. Not sure what a solution would be... maybe a prominent link towards the top of the forum pages, like "WIKI HERE!"?

Actually, that leads me to not a bad idea for how to expand the book... anytime I look for a particular forum post, assume the post is important, and put the info from that post into a section in the book, even if it's just copy+paste quotes with links to the forum.