<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>The DhO Itself</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_category?p_l_id=&amp;mbCategoryId=11921</link> <description>Here is a place to post discussions about the DhO itself, business, tech matters, global issues and the like.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2014 00:35:46 GMT</pubDate> <dc:date>2014-10-19T00:35:46Z</dc:date> <item> <title>RE: New Moderation Policy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606263</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Anyone else got something smart to say about fairies being real or not?I didn&amp;#039;t think so...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I believe the term is not &amp;#034;smart,&amp;#034; but &amp;#034;smartass.&amp;#034;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 05:24:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606263</guid> <dc:creator>Tom Tom</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-17T05:24:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606136</link> <description>A buddha is a buddha... The purse is temporary.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2014 22:37:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606136</guid> <dc:creator>Jeremy May</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-16T22:37:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606129</link> <description>And you are past the point of being wrong.&lt;br /&gt;I am not past the point of being shocked by you.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2014 22:23:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606129</guid> <dc:creator>Jeremy May</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-16T22:23:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605884</link> <description>- would be more like your sister.  Thought you&amp;#039;d know that.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2014 06:10:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605884</guid> <dc:creator>carrot top</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-16T06:10:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605810</link> <description>No longer a need to Hide, brother.  You cannot hide from We.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2014 03:38:11 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605810</guid> <dc:creator>Jeremy May</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-16T03:38:11Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605788</link> <description>&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;FireKasinaWeb&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;4e125420-2a03-4dfc-b845-69640be1bb16" /&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2014 03:22:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605788</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-16T03:22:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605672</link> <description>Here is another on the same kindah flame hand riff&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;sumoware&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;images&amp;#x2f;temp&amp;#x2f;xzoxcnnpthxeqihp&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;</description> <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2014 22:02:46 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605672</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-15T22:02:46Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605576</link> <description>Cool... here is a PDF... let me know if you need anything else : )</description> <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2014 19:30:45 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605576</guid> <dc:creator>: ladyfrog :</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-15T19:30:45Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605206</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;: ladyfrog ::&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hi!  I was also playing around with Dreamwalker&amp;#039;s idea - i got a flame i like but did not have time to mess with the hand beyond something that looked like a discarded rubber glove.  John, if you have  use for this let me know i&amp;#039;ll clean it up and send it to you. My guess is a simpler flame than this may work better with a hand anyway...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;flame&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;104d664b-8612-4cd7-ba3a-0b2644d9aa92" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ladyfrog I LOVE THIS! Yah I can definitely clean this up! Something about this flame I really like, and the colors are nice too.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Megan just sent me a really awesome hand drawn version of the open hand with the flame based on DreamWalker&amp;#039;s idea as well.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m even considering now combining this with her hand... but I will do a version of each and then one combined.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sweet!!! Loving this collaboration &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt; Will post some good stuff soon based on this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(**also... sorry if there was a repeat of a previous post... weird stuff going on with quick reply function!)</description> <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2014 05:11:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605206</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-15T05:11:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605183</link> <description>Hi!  I was also playing around with Dreamwalker&amp;#039;s idea - i got a flame i like but did not have time to mess with the hand beyond something that looked like a discarded rubber glove.  John, if you have  use for this let me know i&amp;#039;ll clean it up and send it to you. My guess is a simpler flame than this may work better with a hand anyway...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;flame&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;104d664b-8612-4cd7-ba3a-0b2644d9aa92" /&gt;</description> <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2014 04:36:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605183</guid> <dc:creator>: ladyfrog :</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-15T04:36:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605080</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;My apologies to Megan and John for my remarks -- I appear to have been in a Disgust phase at the time, as explained here: &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5604528"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5604528&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There was a possible Fruition the following Friday, so perhaps it was not all in vain!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh, and as for the 99:1 statistic, the source was none other than Daniel himself, in his video talk at Cheetah House. I did a quick flick through but couldn&amp;#039;t find it (it&amp;#039;s like 3 hours long lol). It was going to be some grand LOLathon for me to post the exact minute:second he said it but it really doesn&amp;#039;t matter now. I can&amp;#039;t even remember if he said it or not any more.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edd&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hey Edd!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really appreciate this appology, and fully accepted on my end. I sincerely do hope that you passed through a fruition! That would be fantastic. At the end of the day, this is what it&amp;#039;s all about, going through this process. I completely understand what it&amp;#039;s like... been there so many times!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And the various discussion about female vs male practitioners is really interesting and worth discussing. Part of the reason we offered logos of such a different angle. I think it&amp;#039;s important to recognize both parties and their value, regardless of the possible quantity on any side.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Much love!&lt;br /&gt;John</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 23:38:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605080</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T23:38:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605073</link> <description>&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Thanks for the feedback Daniel.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So interesting all the different opinions, tastes, ideas, and points of view we all have. I find that to be the trickiest bit of stuff like logo work, how to please and convey all sides in a small little icon?.. But usually what makes it easier is having a final decision maker, and for them to have some direction in mind, while being open to new possibility and fresh perspective. &lt;/span&gt;Hallelujah &lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;for boundaries and decisions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I still think it would be fun to try to have rotating logos&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is a really fun idea that somehow suits well to the whole logo &amp;#034;problem&amp;#034;. It actually has some conceptualness to it too, in the sense that we could see it as a represention of all the flavors which make up the DhO community. It&amp;#039;s also saying &amp;#034;Hey we don&amp;#039;t have one identity... and we&amp;#039;re cool with that.&amp;#034; Since this isn&amp;#039;t a corporation, or a company where we&amp;#039;d want to have only one logo for people to always identify with and say &amp;#034;Oh yah I recognize that! That&amp;#039;s DhO.&amp;#034;... unless that was desired, the rotating logos is cool!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;I am very open to ideas about how to make the homepage convey the necessary information and be serious but also not off-putting: thoughts?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;The clean, black and white homepage layout and format is nice, but I was wanting some color, and I do currently like the sort of teal tones of the current logo, as they are sort of serious but also sort of friendly.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was playing with this as you could see a couple renditions. We can mess around it with more and cater it more to your vision and taste. I definitely think we could and should do something to help the home page become more organized and concise. I did a variation of that black and white home page with colored symbols next to each category to give color and call attention. Could play on that... I&amp;#039;m happy to help. But, anybody else can take this on too if they want. I also see other areas that need organizational attention and cleaning up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;the first of the black and white flame images with the more cursive font would seem nice&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I like the flame in the hand idea that Dream Walker came up with a lot! Megan is going to be illustrating it tonight in order to make it more of a clear stylized logo. I will render it out on the computer after, and put typography to it. Really curious to see what this will look like.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s my input.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 23:32:30 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605073</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T23:32:30Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605013</link> <description>Yeah, I am going to need help with that. Thanks as always.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 21:38:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605013</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T21:38:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605007</link> <description>Dear Simon,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for pointing that out. Actually, that app ends at 6.1, but there was one for 6.2, so I bought that (only about $31, not bad for some logo fun).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is called Content Rotator and is installed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now we just need to make sure we have the logos to have it post up and to figure out how to do that. Will check out how it works. May need help, in fact probably will. Thanks for your continued support,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 21:29:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605007</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T21:29:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604837</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel M. Ingram:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I still think it would be fun to try to have rotating logos: programming wise, how hard would that be?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There&amp;#039;s a free liferay portlet that should be able to handle that:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;liferay&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;marketplace&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;mp&amp;#x2f;application&amp;#x2f;27250888&amp;#x3f;_7_WAR_osbportlet_backURL&amp;#x3d;&amp;#x26;_7_WAR_osbportlet_tabs1&amp;#x3d;access-control"&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I can probably get it set up for you if you want.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 19:43:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604837</guid> <dc:creator>Simon Ekstrand</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T19:43:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604797</link> <description>Alright, I like the following logos:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edd&amp;#039;s original one is good, clean, modern, and nice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I actually think the Dharma Overground with the red Zen paint swoosh by DreamWalker is hilarious and quite good, but I have been trying to get away from specific tradition branding, such as a Dharma Wheel, or whatever, as they might alienate people from the others, such as Zen people thinking it was a Theravadan Site.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the formal presentation, I find the specific detailed images with the wires on people&amp;#039;s heads and the like somehow to busy and the wire one a bit creepy. Have been trying to simplify and clean the place up a bit, as evidenced by the current theme and logo.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Logo variation #5, the one with the leaves with lines coming out of the top of them in red, green and blue is very inviting seeming. The eye ones are somehow also slightly creepy to me, not sure why, and will think about that. It almost looks like a spy agency logo. I agree that Logo #5 looks a bit like lollypops, but I am ok with that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really like : ladyfrog :&amp;#039;s logos: they are clean, particularly the pure green one with the lines the same width.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Derek Cameron&amp;#039;s DHO with the Top Secret format would perfect if we had an app. As to the wheel one, while I really like it, I am trying to get away from specific tradition branding.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am very open to ideas about how to make the homepage convey the necessary information and be serious but also not off-putting: thoughts?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The clean, black and white homepage layout and format is nice, but I was wanting some color, and I do currently like the sort of teal tones of the current logo, as they are sort of serious but also sort of friendly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As to Liferay, I consider it a totally buggy hog of a platform with huge, obvious errors and weird changes that crept into this version, so many times I have longed for aspects of 5.2.2 back, but here we are, and it has some good points also.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As to money to make things work and be clean and functional, I definitely can hire people on occasion to make this place better. My current budget for this is modest, but still probably could get some things done.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The flames in the hand are all quite fun, and actually oddly reminiscent of the original logo... Still, would need some text somehow, I think, so what would go with those?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am a total cheeseball when it comes to design, as evidenced by my book cover and the original logos, which I designed. Originally, I had this idea of two people in trenchcoats and dark glasses in an alley meeting to discuss something for the DhU, and then for the DhO was thinking about someone crawling out of a manhole on a ladder with a lantern, but then I am a doctor, not a designer, and this shows, I think.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The DhO hand and flame logos with the script text are all quite nice, actually. I think the last one would still stray hardcore into the territory of Masculine, this being an obvious example of stereotyping, but it is my honest impression. What if you did that but tweaked the color or some other aspect somewhat to make it more inviting? Something that balanced masculine and feminine perspectives, whatever those are, would be optimal, I feel.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Overall, when I think back through them, the first of the black and white flame images with the more cursive font would seem nice, not advocate for a specific tradition, and convey something of the spirit of people holding wisdom and light for themselves, which is key.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Alright, those are my thoughts. I still think it would be fun to try to have rotating logos: programming wise, how hard would that be?</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:20:56 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604797</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T18:20:56Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604755</link> <description>While I am looking these all over, here&amp;#039;s a blast from the past: the original Dharma Underground Logo from back in the day when we were on WetPaint.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 17:43:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604755</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T17:43:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604713</link> <description>I have only done Goenka retreats.  As far as I can tell available retreat spots is allocated between the genders on a 50:50 basis.  As all of the retreats I attended were fully subscribed, the attendance based on gender (or genitals, as Katy would say) was 50:50.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have noted, however, in reviewing the schedules for upcoming retreats in various North America locations (which I have done from time to time) that the women&amp;#039;s side usually filled up quicker than the men&amp;#039;s side, which would indicate that there is a stronger female demand for these retreats (which are sometimes referred to a boot camps).  This is obviously anectodal only, but I do not get the sense that men are significantly more interested in meditation than women.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think someone also said (Dipa Ma?) that women are generally better at meditation because their minds are more pliant, but I think it is (as said by Jake) best not to generalize too much in this area.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 16:57:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604713</guid> <dc:creator>carrot top</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T16:57:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604639</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel M. Ingram:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will look more at the designs that everyone so kindly submitted today. Perhaps we could even rotate them, as Google does...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;That would be sweet!&lt;br /&gt;In every practice group I&amp;#039;ve ever been involved with women were disproportionately represented (i.e., more women). In the two Vajrayana groups I&amp;#039;ve been involved with, the Diamond Way group and the Dzogchen Community, it has generally appeared that women are more serious practitioners and men are generally more intellectual in their approach (although these are merely generalizations for which there are many exceptions; still they are perspectives that are often shared amongst members of those groups). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lots of famous lineage masters in the Vajrayana are women. Even in the Diamond Way group, which is run by the Danish Lama Ole Nydhal who by any perspective is a pretty old fashioned guy when it comes to gender relations/gender identity (to put it mildly lol) has a lot of strong female practitioners in positions of power.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 14:55:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604639</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T14:55:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604549</link> <description>In my experience on retreats, about 70% of the retreatants were female on basically all the retreats I went on, that includes IMS, Gaia House, The Thai Monastery in Bodh Gaya, Bhavana Society,  and MBMC (where I did the most intense practice of my life). I personally would very much like to figure out how to balance things more on places like the DhO, as has been discussed here numerous times over the years. I am not sure exactly what the female to male ratio is here, but it is definitely skewed far in the direction of males, so far as I can tell, though plenty of people post anonymously, and plenty of posters don&amp;#039;t clearly identify their gender, still, I think the concensus is that it is far to the male side of imbalance.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks, Edd, for your apologies and insights into your possible stages. Those can be taxing, for sure.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will look more at the designs that everyone so kindly submitted today. Perhaps we could even rotate them, as Google does...</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 13:09:39 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604549</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T13:09:39Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604545</link> <description>My apologies to Megan and John for my remarks -- I appear to have been in a Disgust phase at the time, as explained here: &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5604528"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5604528&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There was a possible Fruition the following Friday, so perhaps it was not all in vain!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh, and as for the 99:1 statistic, the source was none other than Daniel himself, in his video talk at Cheetah House. I did a quick flick through but couldn&amp;#039;t find it (it&amp;#039;s like 3 hours long lol). It was going to be some grand LOLathon for me to post the exact minute:second he said it but it really doesn&amp;#039;t matter now. I can&amp;#039;t even remember if he said it or not any more.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edd</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 12:55:51 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604545</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T12:55:51Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: New Moderation Policy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604272</link> <description>Anyone else got something smart to say about fairies being real or not?&lt;br /&gt;I didn&amp;#039;t think so...</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 23:18:30 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604272</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel Leffler</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T23:18:30Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: New Moderation Policy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604117</link> <description>&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;It should also be noted that, as the FAQ points out, &amp;#034;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;That said, this place couldn&amp;#039;t happen without a wide range of talents and efforts from a wide range of people, and this place will only do well if there are people who feel that they are getting something out of it and able to contribute something to it, and so in reality, for most things, a mix of group consensus, individual action, and compromise drives the day to day governance of the thing, and thus, the reality what happens is generally an organic collective democracy tempered and augmented at times by frank dictatorship as a last resort.&amp;#034;, and I have no problems resorting to that frank dictatorship as a last resort, and, as I don&amp;#039;t believe that the benefit-to-harm ratio favors Sawfoot&amp;#039;s posts, on balance, however possibly well-meant he says they are, and, as previous requests have not gotten the message across, I am again requesting that Sawfoot find another outlet for what he feels are his talents, interests and perspectives, as, if they are truly of the value he says they are, perhaps some other community will agree and embrace his level of meticulous engagement and meta-cognitive abilities with open arms.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Should that be in any way ambiguous, feel unfair, or cause you other objections, Sawfoot, please simply leave anyway, recognizing that the web is a vast place and, I believe, capable of providing a much closer fit to your ways of interacting and viewing the world, thus increasing happiness all around.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel&lt;br /&gt;Administrator, Owner and Founder of the DhO&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 14:55:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604117</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T14:55:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: New Moderation Policy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604093</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;bernd the broter:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Threats of Violence shouldn&amp;#039;t be allowed.&lt;br /&gt;IMO other threats shouldn&amp;#039;t be allowed either.&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not at all amused about this:&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jeremy May:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;If I ever see you tell someone that &lt;br /&gt;they may be crazy, even once in all the years that I will watch you, I &lt;br /&gt;will tell everyone what you are in a way that will ruin you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks. Btw, the &amp;#034;flagging&amp;#034; function works now - it alerts the mods.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A moderator has already addressed the post in question.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 13:10:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604093</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T13:10:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: New Moderation Policy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604090</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot _:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;B B:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;It seems clear to me that a lot of the recent and past problems on this site (e.g. people enjoying people getting hit with both barrels, and the blasting of people with those barrels) stem from inherent problems in the culture surrounding it.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is the issue of severe personal attacks and harsh treatment really a serious one though? The only ones that come to mind for me are (1) triplethink attacking you (by far the worst), (2) Chuck Kasmire attacking you, (3) a user named Dan, IIRC, forcefully telling Jen Pearly to &amp;#034;get out with your feminism&amp;#034;, and (4) &amp;#034;Ian And&amp;#034; quite severely disparaging the practice quality of a young guy whose name I now can&amp;#039;t recall. In my very regularly frequenting this site over the past 2 and a half years these occurrences seem to be very rare. Can you link to a few others?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;I was referring to &amp;#034;problems&amp;#034;, not just severe personal attacks and harsh personal treatment. I could think of few of others of this type, but I take your point - they are pretty rare. But you miss out the next sentence in your quote:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;People (both users and mods) have justified their suffering-causing behaviour because they believe they are acting in the vision of what this place is all about, a place for &amp;#034;hardcore dharma&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;hardcore practice&amp;#034;. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So problems... the point about the culture and vision is what people do to justify behaviour. So I had a post about this recently that got deleted to illustrate. But to rehash, dat buddha field had an perceived arrogant attitude in that he knew what real practice/the dark night was all about . This upset a few users as they felt they were being talked down to by someone they believed to be their inferior/younger. This lead a pissed-off DW to make a disparging remark in the spirit of this what this place is all about - where practice involved non-lacking phenomonlogical descriptions,  I made a snarky meta-comment about DW&amp;#039;s perceived ability to be the guardian of the spirit of the site, then Florian made a snarky comment in the spirit of what he believed this site is about with his mantra &amp;#034;this is place is about meditation practice&amp;#034;, then I made a thread trying to highlight some of the problems in all this (myself included), that led to a small shit storm, then we had this secondary shit-storm with that thread with Bill/victim identity, where he kept on repeating over and over &amp;#034;this is a site for practice&amp;#034; where it was apparent he was justifying his behaviour with a (distorted) perception of the spirit of the site. Now, in these cases, I don&amp;#039;t think the word &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034; was used, but it is pretty clear in Daniel&amp;#039;s vision of the site (or at least was until recently) that this is a place for hardcore meditation practice, where &amp;#034;practice&amp;#034; is often used as a signifier or pointer to &amp;#034;(hardcore meditation) practice&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But, I must ask, why do you even care? Is it because you&amp;#039;re genuinely interested in achieving Awakening in this lifetime and have a serious practice to prove it, or, perhaps, because you simply enjoy receiving attention and stirring things up, and so create endless numbers of meta-posts and meta-threads on a forum where you can exploit the exceptional patience and civility of its members? To be honest, a far more important issue for me is how you could have possibly amassed 468 posts on this site when you almost never talk about your own practice, give advice based on your own practice, or show any interest in improving.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;The first part of your post is about the content of my post, which I appreciate, and I have responded to it, as you make a valid point in my opinion. The second part is an ad hominen attack. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Mods: A suggestion - Could we change the first line of the new rules from:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;li&gt;No name-calling or ad hominem attacks&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;to&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;li&gt;No name-calling or ad hominem attacks, unless that person deserves it because they are a troll/a troll sock-puppet second cousin/has a shitty practice/has or used to have the user name James Yen/a whiner who whines about &lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;being treated as an outsider when someone else has had enough/&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;doesn&amp;#039;t show signs of improving/has no practice/is an attention seeking shit stirer/doesn&amp;#039;t meditate/has pissed me off/is insincere/is excessively discursive/is an intellectual mastubator/provides lacking phenomonological descriptions/is a &lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;pot-stirring cynical misinterpreting hyper-simplistic armchair-quarterbacking speculative ignorantly-pontificating knee-jerk-negative reductionist who hangs out on formus that have nearly nothing to do with their apparent interests and wouldn&amp;#039;t seem to adequately address their core personal pathology&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I didn&amp;#039;t intend to influence people&amp;#039;s opinions regarding the validity of your original statement by arguing ad hominem. In fact, I wasn&amp;#039;t trying to question the validity of your original statement at all. I was trying to raise the separate issue of your motives behind being one of the DhO&amp;#039;s most frequent posters, and prompt you to question them. In support of this I tried to make an objective statement about the proportion of your posts that are directly related to practice, based on my time spent reading large numbers of them. I contend that none of this constitutes an &amp;#034;attack&amp;#034;. My intention was to help keep this forum in line with its stated purpose of being a support for hardcore meditation practice, and I have long identified your contributions as being largely disregarding of that purpose. Would you seriously claim otherwise? Are you actively trying to attain Awakening and have the necessary practice for that goal? Have you crossed the A&amp;amp;P? Can you enter even the 1st jhana?</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 13:00:12 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604090</guid> <dc:creator>B B</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T13:00:12Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: New Moderation Policy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604045</link> <description>Threats of Violence shouldn&amp;#039;t be allowed.&lt;br /&gt;IMO other threats shouldn&amp;#039;t be allowed either.&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not at all amused about this:&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jeremy May:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;If I ever see you tell someone that &lt;br /&gt;they may be crazy, even once in all the years that I will watch you, I &lt;br /&gt;will tell everyone what you are in a way that will ruin you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 11:37:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604045</guid> <dc:creator>bernd the broter</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T11:37:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603795</link> <description>Wanted to clarify, what you said is not foolish, but that gender imparity, and that different roles based upon genitals is foolish, it&amp;#039;s primitive.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Okay?&lt;br /&gt;Psi</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 01:41:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603795</guid> <dc:creator>Psi Phi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T01:41:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603789</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;katy steger:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;All day I regretted writing &lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#034;(...)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;em&gt;Western buddhists can bring something substantial to the schools of buddhism: gender parity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Currently, monastics are held to different rules  and afforded different roles based on their genitals.  Goofy.&amp;#034;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Anyone&lt;/em&gt; (not just Western buddhists) can support and cause gender parity. : )&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;_____&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;(This isn&amp;#039;t to say that cats don&amp;#039;t meditate, maybe they are just not recognized.)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Yeah, I don&amp;#039;t know and I don&amp;#039;t verify so I let sleeping cats lay or meditate or ...? : )&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;But no, have no regrets, it&amp;#039;s true, and it&amp;#039;s foolish, and it is goofy, and it&amp;#039;s not Dharma.  How can one have true equanimty with views of imparity?  This doesn&amp;#039;t even make sense.  Any discrimination, of any kind, seems to be a practice in non-equanimity.  This isn&amp;#039;t saying that when discriminating thoughts arise in our minds we have to claim them , or take them personally, thoughts simply arise of their own nature sometimes, and sometimes thoughts are just non-sense when examined, just as easy to let them arise and fall away.  I like to think of thoughts when they arise as mere suggestions, that way one has already taken a step back from them and can see them as suggestions to act upon, rather than thoughts that should be carried out.  And , I know you already know this, it just helps me learn to write it all out sometimes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One last thought, what is frustrating is not just the training of our own minds, which is difficult enough, but the understanding that there are worldviews numbering in billions of other minds that are not readily agreeable worldviews, but, of course it is that way, most of humanity is not systematically training their minds.  Even look here at the average &amp;#034;views&amp;#034; of a typical Dharma Overground post, it is about 30 + or -, this increases over time of course.  Or look at web hits on Youtube for some silly video, LMFAO Party Rock Anthem (754,042,160 views), then look at Ayya Khema&amp;#039; web hits for first jhana, (14,000) views over a 5 year period.....  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I do wonder how many people in the world are really practicing, it must be a very small percentage....  So, no wonder, these primitive ideas of gender, nationality, religions, materialism, etc. still exist.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, OH NO!!, now I am watching Party Rock !!!!!   add one more fool....  Everday I&amp;#039;m shufflin&amp;#039; ..... &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/huh.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Easier to just smile at it all&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;P.S.  Okay, back to Mindfulness ....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; </description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 01:38:11 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603789</guid> <dc:creator>Psi Phi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T01:38:11Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603767</link> <description>All day I regretted writing &lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#034;(...)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;em&gt;Western buddhists can bring something substantial to the schools of buddhism: gender parity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Currently, monastics are held to different rules  and afforded different roles based on their genitals.  Goofy.&amp;#034;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Anyone&lt;/em&gt; (not just Western buddhists) can support and cause gender parity. : )&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;_____&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;(This isn&amp;#039;t to say that cats don&amp;#039;t meditate, maybe they are just not recognized.)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Yeah, I don&amp;#039;t know and I don&amp;#039;t verify so I let sleeping cats lay or meditate or ...? : )</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 00:51:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603767</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T00:51:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Transactional Analysis and the "Drama Overground"</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603760</link> <description>I&amp;#039;ve had it in my e-library for awhile now. Coincidentally, just yesterday I was looking for a physical copy in a used bookstore.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary were both heavily influenced by TA. RAW included it in Prometheus Rising, and Leary regularly wrote about games and scripts. And, the idea of scripts is pretty well-known in the psychology world. So, TA hasn&amp;#039;t gone completely unused.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m moving TA Today and Games People Play to the top of my reading queue...  Thanks Daniel</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 00:29:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603760</guid> <dc:creator>Droll Dedekind</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T00:29:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: New Moderation Policy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603756</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Katy:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I do relate to this as I have already shared: sometimes aggressive debate/arguing is a way to kick the tires and see if a practice is worthwhile. Still, one has to get to own-mind and to just watching it, not ever outgoing biting remarks and chase and stir ups.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;That&amp;#039;s said, I wish people ignored posts like these and stopped giving chase.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sawfoot:&lt;br /&gt;Erm, people not including you?! This sure seems like an ad hominen attack that ignores and devalues the content and context of the original post and instead makes it about me and we all know where that leads... &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, definitely including me, S. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do you think the way you&amp;#039;ve communicating draws a person to the content and context of your writing, or do you think the way you&amp;#039;ve commicated draws a person to engage defensively or hostilely? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I eventually did see something in the dhammapada that I related to: With our thoughts we create the world.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So what, at death, do I want to know I created more of: working together or warring together? &lt;br /&gt;More from the dhammapada: ill-will only ever gives rise to ill-will...&lt;br /&gt;Emotions are like that: conceit creates more conceit..&lt;br /&gt;Gratifying affrontiveness creates affrontiveness.&lt;br /&gt;In what sort of world do I want to live? With our thoughts and feelings expressed, a caused experience comes into being.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It helped that people I respected in the forum also were basically ignoring my posts (me!) and only mutually hostile/affrontive people were jumping in to reply to me. Yep, I got surrounded by the environment I created.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sawfoot:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;Not likely to stop with the &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;discursiveness any time soon! But will see what I can do with more productive avenues and avoiding stirring up trouble here. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Well, for me, it&amp;#039;s interesting. If there&amp;#039;s emotional gratification in &amp;#034;stirring up trouble&amp;#034; that stirring would happen wherever that mind presents itself. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We&amp;#039;re both guests at this potlatch, so to speak. So I am generally happy when I read you&amp;#039;ve &amp;#034;walked in the door here&amp;#034;, figuratively speaking. In part, because we&amp;#039;ve also chatted once for a while and I think body language and facial expression form a helpful basis, too (and the presence of funny cat).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I&amp;#039;d love to see your thoughts without the affrontive expressions. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But if that&amp;#039;s where you&amp;#039;re at, yes, I will probably wish you well but ask you to avoid this particular &amp;#034;potlatch&amp;#034; (online forum), else it&amp;#039;s like an expressive, talented relative who sings a great &amp;#034;Danny Boy&amp;#034;, but follows quickly in becoming inflammed/troublesome/unrestrained at the table.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Smile and high five and happy approach to one-year wedding anniversary (yes, soon?)...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My two cents,&lt;br /&gt;Katy&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;{edited: I lengthened this post, I tried to re-shorten this post, now I&amp;#039;ll just leave it alone... maybe ten times now?}</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 00:18:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603756</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T00:18:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Transactional Analysis and the "Drama Overground"</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603733</link> <description>Is Freud related to Rorschach? You know, the guy who painted lots of pictures of my parents fighting?</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 23:21:56 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603733</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T23:21:56Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: New Moderation Policy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603707</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;katy steger:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Daniel: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Sawfoot: you will find imperfections here, incongruities, and that is normal. Still, were you interested in the sorts of practices generally discussed here (or others for that matter that are useful that you wish to introduce), you would likely find more value and perhaps spend less time trying to pick the place apart. I still think that, as this place continues to not meet your ideals in so many ways that you continue to describe in such detail day after day, you should do as many other fine people before you have done, meaning started a site that suited their tastes with a group more closely matching their ideals. It tends to save trouble all around and in all cases that I am aware of has resulted in increased happiness for all sides.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Agree. Sawfoot, I think you do have a practice community that excites you if our old chat is still relevant. While I don&amp;#039;t want anywhere to become a cozy echobox of non-scrutiny, I think you have played the same-style harp too long here. I tend to ignore it and, in my own pompous mind, see your activity as a sympton of it being easier to chase and create outside mice to chase instead of watching own-mice arise in own-mind and sit with that chase. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I do relate to this as I have already shared: sometimes aggressive debate/arguing is a way to kick the tires and see if a practice is worthwhile. Still, one has to get to own-mind and to just watching it, not ever outgoing biting remarks and chase and stir ups.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s said, I wish people ignored posts like these and stopped giving chase..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;Erm, people not including you?! This sure seems like an ad hominen attack that ignores and devalues the content and context of the original post and instead makes it about me and we all know where that leads...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But yes, good advice, isn&amp;#039;t it...Actually mediating and letting those insights pervade your life in a meaningful way. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Best wishes and I welcome a practice thread of yours, though not more of the discursiveness which you&amp;#039;ve been sharing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;Not likely to stop with the &lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;discursiveness any time soon! But will see what I can do with more productive avenues and avoiding stirring up trouble here. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;Cheerio. xx&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;edit: spelling... as usual&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 22:27:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603707</guid> <dc:creator>sawfoot _</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T22:27:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: New Moderation Policy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603691</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel M. Ingram:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I have similar concerns.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is ironic that, in my view, the person who has caused the most trouble over the life of the Dharma Overground is actually Sawfoot, and the restraint that has been shown in light of this is truly remarkable and vastly more civil that most forums would produce, in my view.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sawfoot: you will find imperfections here, incongruities, and that is normal. Still, were you interested in the sorts of practices generally discussed here (or others for that matter that are useful that you wish to introduce), you would likely find more value and perhaps spend less time trying to pick the place apart. I still think that, as this place continues to not meet your ideals in so many ways that you continue to describe in such detail day after day, you should do as many other fine people before you have done, meaning started a site that suited their tastes with a group more closely matching their ideals. It tends to save trouble all around and in all cases that I am aware of has resulted in increased happiness for all sides.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You may also note that The DhO is one thing, and I am another. While there is clearly some connection between the two, I have ignored the DhO for months at a time, once not posting or checking it once for 3 months, and it carried along just fine. This is a model that you somehow have missed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Further, the word &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034; is a word that you clearly take very differently from the way it is intended. You seem to mix into that all sorts of ideas of your that don&amp;#039;t actually apply in reality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am reminded of the word &amp;#034;extreme&amp;#034;, such as the example in the movie Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, when they are plagued by a group of guys yelling, &amp;#034;Extreme!&amp;#034; and then tearing things up and causing trouble. That sort of use of the word, taken in that context, would seem to be associated with the sort of behaviour you seem to associate with &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, the implications of the term &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034;, as used here, are to differentiate it from things such as the more low-dose, light-weight, hyper-psychologized, low-expectation mindfulness practices that one sees in much of the Western meditation world, and not to imply something about being caustic. Mixing up my own self-depricating critique of some of my speech and communcation patterns (patterns I feel have faded somewhat in the 15 years since I wrote those words) with the term &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034; is neither helpful nor accurate and does not convey the spirit of the term.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Hardcore&amp;#034; is meant to encourage people to aim high, to apply doses of practice likely to affect deep changes, to empower people, not to give license to verbal abuse. You associate the two together in ways that are not helpful and may color people&amp;#039;s impression of the place adversely and out of proportion to actual incidents of malignant speech, as B B points out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Were you to practice, you might be willing to forgive some of the inconsistencies and flaws that you seem so adept at perceiving, plenty of which may have some validity, at least in the abstract, and start appreciating what this and its sister sites offer, which is a community of people supporting practices that can truly transform perception and open whole worlds of understanding. It is always amazing to me that people can be exposed to these things and not find them extremely attractive, but then tastes vary and cognitive barriers abound.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Oh, yes, a brief warning. I should mention that I am hardcore, into hardcore practice, into very hard-hitting dharma, and sometimes I let it out with both barrels.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;The bio is humorous and self-depreciating, this quote (from your website, above, that I excerpted earlier) is more aggrandizing than depreciating. I don&amp;#039;t know how the link could be any less clear - there is even a physical violence metaphor of &amp;#034;hard-hitting&amp;#034;. This might have been written a long time ago, but it has to mean something, though I appreciate your views and personality may have changed since it was written. As I said in my post, I was talking about how people (which means people, that includes people other than myself) could have a perception or a &lt;strong&gt;distorted&lt;/strong&gt; perception of what hardcore is all about. And it is useful to hear what you would like to have that word mean. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You know it is possible to criticise something that you find value in, because you want to make it better? And going around in circles, you know you don&amp;#039;t get to decide what practice is and who is doing it? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao has a practice - their interactions on this forum have been part of that, and it apparently has ben very useful for them. I would concur. It isn&amp;#039;t just about an expression of your personality, it is about understanding your-self - your dharma self:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Not Tao:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I came back, that same ego reared it&amp;#039;s ugly head, and I had to keep close watch on it.  Disassembling it has been a great learning process for me - as someone who&amp;#039;s interested in emotional triggers - but is that really the purpose of this forum - to provide an emotional jungle gym where we all need to be indiana jones just to keep posting?  I&amp;#039;d encourage everyone to consider their own dharma self that they&amp;#039;ve created.  Is it really skillful?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Were you to practice, Dnaiel, you might be willing to understand and appreciate some of the inconsistencies and flaws that you seem so adept at perceiving in me, plenty of which may have some validity, at least in the abstract, and start appreciating what I and people like me have to offer, which is a community of people supporting practices that can truly transform perception and open whole worlds of understanding. It is always amazing to me that people can be exposed to these things and not find them extremely illuminating, but then tastes vary and cognitive barriers abound... etc..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You know, that community which creates the other &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;view_message&amp;#x2f;1188800"&gt;99% of posts which don&amp;#039;t involve &amp;#034;deep&amp;#034; &amp;#034;heavy&amp;#034; &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034; &amp;#034;serious&amp;#034; &amp;#034;real&amp;#034; &amp;#034;practice&amp;#034;.&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But yes, overall, getting past the 8 paragraphs all structured to have a dig at me (ad hominen much?), point taken. </description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 22:13:59 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603691</guid> <dc:creator>sawfoot _</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T22:13:59Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Transactional Analysis and the "Drama Overground"</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603687</link> <description>With this post, you just convinced me to actually go and read the book. (Game theory sounds fun.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By the way, there&amp;#039;s probably a simple reason why no one has gone and read it: AFAIK in MCTB you only say that it&amp;#039;s good, but not what&amp;#039;s in there, and what makes it great. Thus it&amp;#039;s easy to react by thinking something along the lines of &amp;#034;Well, I have read this and that book about psychology and learned something, I doubt that something more interesting will be in this book Daniel recommends here. Plus psychology books are often tiresome to read...&amp;#034;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 22:03:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603687</guid> <dc:creator>bernd the broter</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T22:03:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603673</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;katy steger:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Chris: &lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;I happened across this remarkable passage in Ajahn Sujato&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;A History of Mindfulness&amp;#034;, page 287 (&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;emphasis added&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;):&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&amp;#034;From here to the end the text [Smrtyupasthāna Sūtra] refers to &amp;#039;bhikkhus and bhikkhunīs&amp;#039;, both as the audience of the discourse, and as the meditator in the discourse itself. This is quite extraordinary, and I don&amp;#039;t know if it is representative of the Sarvāstivādin Suttas in general. There must have been nuns and laywomen present at many of the teachings, but the texts were put into the male voice. In the Theravāda, even when a discourse is addressed solely to nuns, the hypothetical practitioner of the discourse is usually a monk. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Only rarely are the female practitioners acknowledged. This is rather a shame. The inscriptional evidence, according to Schopen, attests approximately even numbers of monks and nuns in the early schools.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt; Many of the nuns are said to have been learned in a sutta, or in a Pitaka, and so on, so they played their part in the transmission of the Dhamma.These inscriptions usually record substantial donations, of temples and suchlike.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Jains, unlike the Buddhists, made a census of their followers, and the figures consistently recognize far more nuns than monks. Given the patriarchal climate of the times, this is hardly a situation they would have invented, and the numbers of Buddhist nuns may also have exceeded the monks in India, as they do in some modern Buddhist countries.&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you for this, Chris. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is an area where I think Western buddhists can bring something substantial to the schools of buddhism: gender parity. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Currently, monastics are held to different rules  and afforded different roles based on their genitals.  Goofy.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hello Chris and Katy, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Indeed, it is rather odd that there would even have to be a discussion about gender parity within true dharma teachings.  This just seems kind of absurd from a universal view.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let me make a story to see how absurd this is:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Reporter:  &amp;#034; So, this monastary has been established here for hundreds of years, is that correct?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Practioner:  &amp;#034;Why yes, that is so.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Reporter: &amp;#034;And out of the number of practioners, just how many of them are human?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Practioner: &amp;#034;Currently, it is hovering at 100%&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(This isn&amp;#039;t to say that cats don&amp;#039;t meditate, maybe they are just not recognized.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From my view to separate Humans into classification is a fool&amp;#039;s folly.  (Though a game that&amp;#039;s being played in the world constantly)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I like to imagine humans as spines with skulls on top.  Though , then we are reduced to more of a non-gender snake-like entity, which is kinda creepy, kinda real...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Back to the show...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 21:39:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603673</guid> <dc:creator>Psi Phi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T21:39:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: New Moderation Policy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603668</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;B B:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;It seems clear to me that a lot of the recent and past problems on this site (e.g. people enjoying people getting hit with both barrels, and the blasting of people with those barrels) stem from inherent problems in the culture surrounding it.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is the issue of severe personal attacks and harsh treatment really a serious one though? The only ones that come to mind for me are (1) triplethink attacking you (by far the worst), (2) Chuck Kasmire attacking you, (3) a user named Dan, IIRC, forcefully telling Jen Pearly to &amp;#034;get out with your feminism&amp;#034;, and (4) &amp;#034;Ian And&amp;#034; quite severely disparaging the practice quality of a young guy whose name I now can&amp;#039;t recall. In my very regularly frequenting this site over the past 2 and a half years these occurrences seem to be very rare. Can you link to a few others?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;I was referring to &amp;#034;problems&amp;#034;, not just severe personal attacks and harsh personal treatment. I could think of few of others of this type, but I take your point - they are pretty rare. But you miss out the next sentence in your quote:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;People (both users and mods) have justified their suffering-causing behaviour because they believe they are acting in the vision of what this place is all about, a place for &amp;#034;hardcore dharma&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;hardcore practice&amp;#034;. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So problems... the point about the culture and vision is what people do to justify behaviour. So I had a post about this recently that got deleted to illustrate. But to rehash, dat buddha field had an perceived arrogant attitude in that he knew what real practice/the dark night was all about . This upset a few users as they felt they were being talked down to by someone they believed to be their inferior/younger. This lead a pissed-off DW to make a disparging remark in the spirit of this what this place is all about - where practice involved non-lacking phenomonlogical descriptions,  I made a snarky meta-comment about DW&amp;#039;s perceived ability to be the guardian of the spirit of the site, then Florian made a snarky comment in the spirit of what he believed this site is about with his mantra &amp;#034;this is place is about meditation practice&amp;#034;, then I made a thread trying to highlight some of the problems in all this (myself included), that led to a small shit storm, then we had this secondary shit-storm with that thread with Bill/victim identity, where he kept on repeating over and over &amp;#034;this is a site for practice&amp;#034; where it was apparent he was justifying his behaviour with a (distorted) perception of the spirit of the site. Now, in these cases, I don&amp;#039;t think the word &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034; was used, but it is pretty clear in Daniel&amp;#039;s vision of the site (or at least was until recently) that this is a place for hardcore meditation practice, where &amp;#034;practice&amp;#034; is often used as a signifier or pointer to &amp;#034;(hardcore meditation) practice&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But, I must ask, why do you even care? Is it because you&amp;#039;re genuinely interested in achieving Awakening in this lifetime and have a serious practice to prove it, or, perhaps, because you simply enjoy receiving attention and stirring things up, and so create endless numbers of meta-posts and meta-threads on a forum where you can exploit the exceptional patience and civility of its members? To be honest, a far more important issue for me is how you could have possibly amassed 468 posts on this site when you almost never talk about your own practice, give advice based on your own practice, or show any interest in improving.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;The first part of your post is about the content of my post, which I appreciate, and I have responded to it, as you make a valid point in my opinion. The second part is an ad hominen attack. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Mods: A suggestion - Could we change the first line of the new rules from:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;li&gt;No name-calling or ad hominem attacks&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;to&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;li&gt;No name-calling or ad hominem attacks, unless that person deserves it because they are a troll/a troll sock-puppet second cousin/has a shitty practice/has or used to have the user name James Yen/a whiner who whines about &lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;being treated as an outsider when someone else has had enough/&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;doesn&amp;#039;t show signs of improving/has no practice/is an attention seeking shit stirer/doesn&amp;#039;t meditate/has pissed me off/is insincere/is excessively discursive/is an intellectual mastubator/provides lacking phenomonological descriptions/is a &lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;pot-stirring cynical misinterpreting hyper-simplistic armchair-quarterbacking speculative ignorantly-pontificating knee-jerk-negative reductionist who hangs out on formus that have nearly nothing to do with their apparent interests and wouldn&amp;#039;t seem to adequately address their core personal pathology&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 21:36:36 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603668</guid> <dc:creator>sawfoot _</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T21:36:36Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Transactional Analysis and the "Drama Overground"</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603577</link> <description>Good stuff, I&amp;#039;ll have to come back to this later. (level 2 stroke for you Daniel.) &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/pac_man.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 18:14:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603577</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T18:14:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603567</link> <description>As a male practitioner I&amp;#039;m happy to hear this!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would love to see the balance of gender in these practices even out. Giving importance to both! I&amp;#039;ve ran into some amazing female teachers that offer something uniquely different than male teachers. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve also noticed that they might even be better at direct perception of the teachings, because they are more inclined toward feeling their way through the path as aposed to thinking too much about it. Having more teachers of this nature is highly valuable! I would encourage more of it, and hope that creating an environment that is more inviting to both parties is of asset to all. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The feminine most likely would not be as analytical as the male mind, so their wording around it will be different. Wouldn&amp;#039;t it be nice to have both sides equally spoken to get a more complete picture? Different ways of describing and perceiving the same teachings is of value. I&amp;#039;ve experienced with first hand. Without knowing Megan, I probably would not be on the other side of SE right now. Her way of describing and approaching fruition was the exact balance I needed to my male teacher&amp;#039;s advice. The both combined took me there. It&amp;#039;s a beautiful harmony!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Always the words spoken about this practice can cause wild confusion and be very misleading in terms of practical advice, or very helpful, depending on so many factors. I do find it to be helpful at times to have a more anylitical mind in practice, but ultimately to get the path done, it can be such a huge hinderance!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I also believe we are coming out of a long history of male dominated culture. I don&amp;#039;t think it&amp;#039;s wise to let the pendulum swing completely in the opposite direction as some feminists would be doing. But to seek a nice balance where both are equally valued and cherished. The more voices and flavors of these practices in modern times the better! It just helps normalize the whole thing. People still think Enlightenment is something like levitating and walking through walls.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for sharing.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 17:52:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603567</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T17:52:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Transactional Analysis and the "Drama Overground"</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603538</link> <description>That&amp;#039;s the stuff.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, there is a reaction movement called I&amp;#039;m not ok, you&amp;#039;re not ok, and that&amp;#039;s ok, and they make some useful points, but they don&amp;#039;t invalidate plenty of the original wisdom and useful concepts.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 16:06:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603538</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T16:06:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Transactional Analysis and the "Drama Overground"</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603502</link> <description>Is transactional anaysis the basis for the &amp;#034;I&amp;#039;m Ok, You&amp;#039;re Ok&amp;#034; book?  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Someone recently gave me that book to read, but I didn&amp;#039;t.  But I could.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 15:40:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603502</guid> <dc:creator>carrot top</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T15:40:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603470</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Chris: &lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;I happened across this remarkable passage in Ajahn Sujato&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;A History of Mindfulness&amp;#034;, page 287 (&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;emphasis added&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;):&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&amp;#034;From here to the end the text [Smrtyupasthāna Sūtra] refers to &amp;#039;bhikkhus and bhikkhunīs&amp;#039;, both as the audience of the discourse, and as the meditator in the discourse itself. This is quite extraordinary, and I don&amp;#039;t know if it is representative of the Sarvāstivādin Suttas in general. There must have been nuns and laywomen present at many of the teachings, but the texts were put into the male voice. In the Theravāda, even when a discourse is addressed solely to nuns, the hypothetical practitioner of the discourse is usually a monk. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Only rarely are the female practitioners acknowledged. This is rather a shame. The inscriptional evidence, according to Schopen, attests approximately even numbers of monks and nuns in the early schools.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt; Many of the nuns are said to have been learned in a sutta, or in a Pitaka, and so on, so they played their part in the transmission of the Dhamma.These inscriptions usually record substantial donations, of temples and suchlike.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Jains, unlike the Buddhists, made a census of their followers, and the figures consistently recognize far more nuns than monks. Given the patriarchal climate of the times, this is hardly a situation they would have invented, and the numbers of Buddhist nuns may also have exceeded the monks in India, as they do in some modern Buddhist countries.&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you for this, Chris. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is an area where I think Western buddhists can bring something substantial to the schools of buddhism: gender parity. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Currently, monastics are held to different rules  and afforded different roles based on their genitals.  Goofy.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 13:42:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603470</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T13:42:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603453</link> <description>RE: Enough Drama (and RE: the dharmaoverground logo)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;(If this starts off rather boring, skip to the big paragraph at the end…)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Initially, someone mentioned (in RE: the dharmaoverground logo) &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;The ratio of men to women in meditation is something like 99:1.&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;I added (in the same thread) evidence that &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;women out-number men in Insight-Meditation circles (in the USA), and likewise in (at least some) Asian meditation retreats in the USA&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Then someone added (in RE: EnoughDrama): &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;…&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;Yes, I just saw that thread, and it was a bit ridiculous, especially after  someone looked up the stats and found that there are actually more woman meditators than men….&lt;/span&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actually, there&amp;#039;s &lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;nothing really conclusive&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt; in this data. We don&amp;#039;t have numbers for the &amp;#039;post-modern&amp;#039; groups (SB, Bgeeks, DhO,…). Nor world-wide &amp;#x2013; how many &lt;em&gt;bhikkhus&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;bhikkhunis&lt;/em&gt;, how many laywomen/men attend retreats internationally (yogis), particularly in Asian countries. Nor across sects. (There is, however,  data &amp;#x2013; via google, wikipedia, etc. -- as to Buddhist populations around the world.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All the above was sketched several days ago&lt;/span&gt;, but shelved as not conclusive or relevant to the discussion. But then today I happened across this remarkable passage in Ajahn Sujato&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;A History of Mindfulness&amp;#034;, page 287 (&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;emphasis added&lt;/span&gt;):&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;From here to the end the text [Smrtyupasthāna Sūtra] refers to &amp;#039;bhikkhus and bhikkhunīs&amp;#039;, both as the audience of the discourse, and as the meditator in the discourse itself. This is quite extraordinary, and I don&amp;#039;t know if it is representative of the Sarvāstivādin Suttas in general. There must have been nuns and laywomen present at many of the teachings, but the texts were put into the male voice. In the Theravāda, even when a discourse is addressed solely to nuns, the hypothetical practitioner of the discourse is usually a monk. &lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Only rarely are the female practitioners acknowledged. This is rather a shame. The inscriptional evidence, according to Schopen, attests approximately even numbers of monks and nuns in the early schools.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Many of the nuns are said to have been learned in a sutta, or in a Pitaka, and so on, so they played their part in the transmission of the Dhamma. These inscriptions usually record substantial donations, of temples and suchlike.&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;strong&gt; The Jains, unlike the Buddhists, made a census of their followers, and the figures consistently recognize far more nuns than monks. Given the patriarchal climate of the times, this is hardly a situation they would have invented, and the numbers of Buddhist nuns may also have exceeded the monks in India, as they do in some modern Buddhist countries.&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 12:22:26 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603453</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T12:22:26Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603449</link> <description>RE: Enough Drama (and RE: the dharmaoverground logo)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;(If this starts off rather boring, skip to the big paragraph at the end…)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Initially, someone mentioned (in RE: the dharmaoverground logo) &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;The ratio of men to women in meditation is something like 99:1.&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;I added (in the same thread) evidence that &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;women out-number men in Insight-Meditation circles (in the USA), and likewise in (at least some) Asian meditation retreats in the USA&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Then someone added (in RE: EnoughDrama): &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;…&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;Yes, I just saw that thread, and it was a bit ridiculous, especially after someone looked up the stats and found that there are actually more woman meditators than men….&lt;/span&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actually, there&amp;#039;s &lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;nothing really conclusive&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt; in this data. We don&amp;#039;t have numbers for the &amp;#039;post-modern&amp;#039; groups (SB, Bgeeks, DhO,…). Nor world-wide &amp;#x2013; how many &lt;em&gt;bhikkhus&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;bhikkhunis&lt;/em&gt;, how many laywomen/men attend retreats internationally (yogis), particularly in Asian countries. Nor across sects. (There is, however, data &amp;#x2013; via google, wikipedia, etc. -- as to Buddhist populations around the world.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All the above was sketched several days ago&lt;/span&gt;, but shelved as not conclusive or relevant to the discussion. But then today I happened across this remarkable passage in Ajahn Sujato&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;A History of Mindfulness&amp;#034;, page 287 (&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;emphasis added&lt;/span&gt;):&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;From here to the end the text [Smrtyupasthāna Sūtra] refers to &amp;#039;bhikkhus and bhikkhunīs&amp;#039;, both as the audience of the discourse, and as the meditator in the discourse itself. This is quite extraordinary, and I don&amp;#039;t know if it is representative of the Sarvāstivādin Suttas in general. There must have been nuns and laywomen present at many of the teachings, but the texts were put into the male voice. In the Theravāda, even when a discourse is addressed solely to nuns, the hypothetical practitioner of the discourse is usually a monk. &lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Only rarely are the female practitioners acknowledged. This is rather a shame. The inscriptional evidence, according to Schopen, attests approximately even numbers of monks and nuns in the early schools.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Many of the nuns are said to have been learned in a sutta, or in a Pitaka, and so on, so they played their part in the transmission of the Dhamma.These inscriptions usually record substantial donations, of temples and suchlike.&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Jains, unlike the Buddhists, made a census of their followers, and the figures consistently recognize far more nuns than monks. Given the patriarchal climate of the times, this is hardly a situation they would have invented, and the numbers of Buddhist nuns may also have exceeded the monks in India, as they do in some modern Buddhist countries.&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 12:13:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603449</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T12:13:03Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603432</link> <description>Hi Chris,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for looking to the &amp;#034;high bar&amp;#034;, equanimity. While certainly I don&amp;#039;t have the brahmaviharas all the time, to me they are the only sane mental states when I consider cause-and-effect, and I would want not to buffer myself from seeing a failure to practice in myself by instead applying a lower standard of practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In terms of easy-to-practice and hard-to-practice, it&amp;#039;s interesting that how many comfortable physicalities I have in common with my community make mental practice easy or hard: indoor plumbing like shower and bathroom, hot water, environmental heat during the cold, personal space. When I don&amp;#039;t have these things in common with my community for a period of time all of possessions, hair, clothes, privacy-- these things, and when different from the community norm, become objects with potential for irritation and the mental practice of brahmaviharas requires fresh effort. T&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for mentioning the four sane mental states: friendliness/benevolence, compassion, empathetic joy (happiness for others&amp;#039; happiness) and your own reflection of equanimity here. </description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 11:18:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603432</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T11:18:09Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Transactional Analysis and the "Drama Overground"</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603421</link> <description>While I am not generally known for psychological theory or particularly psychologized practice, the recent trend for my wife to ask me, &amp;#034;What&amp;#039;s up on the Drama Overground,&amp;#034; got me thinking more about this and some of the useful psychological things I have learned along the way, of which I still find Transactional Analysis, that seemingly forgotten bit of reaction to and addition to Freudinism, of great, practical, explanatory value.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oddly enough, though I recommend the book &lt;u&gt;TA Today&lt;/u&gt; in my book, I have been amazed that nobody has ever mentioned to me that they read it, which is really unfortunate, as I expected plenty of people to read it and go, &amp;#034;Wow, how did we forget that important work and why is more of it not incorporated into current understanding of human interaction more directly and consciously?&amp;#034;, and then recommend it to all of their friends.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, here are some basics of TA theory that just might prove useful to someone, as I see much recently that can very easily be illuminated by these points, which is not surprising, as they illuminate a huge swath of human behavior in general with great simplicity and ease. I don&amp;#039;t mean to come off as &amp;#034;Wow, this is the theory of all human behavior that explains everything!&amp;#034;, but I do wish to encourage people to take a serious look at these very simple, straightforward concepts to see how they might practically apply to their own lives and, in this case, on-line interactions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;ta-psychotherapy&amp;#x2e;co&amp;#x2e;uk&amp;#x2f;pdf&amp;#x2f;101&amp;#x2e;pdf"&gt;TA basic theory&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;I think that the concepts of Scrips and Drivers, as well as the Drama Triangle and Game theory, are very worth knowing well so that you can see how they unfold in daily life and thus be more aware of what is going on and less caught up in it. Enjoy.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 11:07:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603421</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T11:07:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603317</link> <description>&lt;div class="lfr-code"&gt;&lt;table&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td class="line-numbers"&gt;&lt;span class="number"&gt;1&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td class="lines"&gt;&lt;div class="line"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Nice background information Chris! &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;All this is just to remind that symbols (Dream_Walker&amp;#039;s, or whatever might be considered or chosen) can be expected to evoke associations in viewers other than those intended by DhO.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I think this will happen regardless of what is chosen. It&amp;#039;s impossible not to.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Also the imagery of gold is used in the Suttas as a symbol of purity. Notably in the metaphor of &amp;#039;right effort&amp;#039; as the process of refining gold &amp;#x2013; s/t blow to intensify fire, s/t sprinkle water to cool, s/t just watch and wait. Fire is instrumental in this quasi-alchemical process, but the focus is on the resultant purity of the gold &amp;#x2013; the mind&amp;#039;s awakening to truth that dispels ignorance.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I personally think it&amp;#039;s awesome to have various hidden meanings and symbolism that points to the practices here at DhO, which are universal and come from Buddhist practice and more. I really like how you are making a connection between Gold and Right Effort, and the whole process of enlightenment. Sweet!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Love the collaboration and discussion going on with this.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 07:08:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603317</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T07:08:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603306</link> <description>re &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;u&gt;Dream Walker &lt;/u&gt;(10/10/14 3:33 PM as a reply to Florian Weps. and 10/11/14 11:52 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Very nice images and rationale, that Dream_Walker offers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The extracted image with added supporting hand (&amp;#034;better photoshopped thing&amp;#034;) that finds resonance later in the thread and is explored in graphic variations (John_Finnell 10/11/14 1:02 PM) … This image bears a striking resemblance to another image found in googling &amp;#039;more images for&amp;#039; in a search on &amp;#034;Buddha &amp;amp; fire&amp;#034;. Here&amp;#039;s the URL (I haven&amp;#039;t yet figured out how to paste in graphic jpgs into posts here):&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;spiritualsoul&amp;#x2e;net&amp;#x2f;forum&amp;#x2f;topics&amp;#x2f;is-nature-the-biggest-guru&amp;#x3f;commentId&amp;#x3d;2273519&amp;#x25;3AComment&amp;#x25;3A88240&amp;#x26;xg_source&amp;#x3d;activity"&gt;http://spiritualsoul.net/forum/topics/is-nature-the-biggest-guru?commentId=2273519%3AComment%3A88240&amp;amp;xg_source=activity&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(Scroll down a bit at that page to find the image referred to.)&lt;br /&gt;The text there (after the &amp;#034;buddahfire.gif&amp;#034; label under the graphic) mentions &amp;#034;In Buddha’s teachings, light is the symbol of truth that dispels the darkness of ignorance.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This image, though, has 9 points (four enclosing hand-like cupping arcs and a single peak point rising from the center). The one from the Buddha statue has 7 points, in the same structure of hand-like arcs. The 7-point version may correspond to the 7 &amp;#039;purifications,&amp;#039; i.e. the overall structure ofthe Visudhimagga. (The 16 stages of insight in MCTB seem to correspond to elements from the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th purifications / main sections in Buddhagosa&amp;#039;s book.) In statues, stupas, temples etc. one can often discern a similar 7-layered structure (but s/t fewer or more layers).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another instance is the image on the cover of my copy of the Visudhimagga with a similar image over the head of a Buddha statue, but with 5 points, in color blue, and each point curled at the top &amp;#x2013; a plant-like or water-wave imagery? (That edition is a reprint by The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, Taiwan, 1997.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Facit: This a stylized symbol, appearing in several variations &amp;#x2013; various numbers of points and colors. It can be seen as flame-like, plant-like, even wave-like, and has been used in variously in Buddhist iconography.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Following-up on my earlier post, suggesting that the symbol of fire might be more Vedic / Hindu than Buddhist (which is just a viewpoint), it may be that the color gold, though possibly fire-like, more represents &amp;#034;light… the symbol of truth&amp;#034; (in text at above googled site). Also the imagery of gold is used in the Suttas as a symbol of purity. Notably in the metaphor of &amp;#039;right effort&amp;#039; as the process of refining gold &amp;#x2013; s/t blow to intensify fire, s/t sprinkle water to cool, s/t just watch and wait. Fire is instrumental in this quasi-alchemical process, but the focus is on the resultant purity of the gold &amp;#x2013; the mind&amp;#039;s awakening to truth that dispels ignorance.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The cradling-hand image also evokes associations &amp;#x2013; I&amp;#039;ve seen it used elsewhere, not recalling exactly where. Maybe SPCA-like or other organizations concerned with environmental conservation. And some associations with religious images. On the other hand, it does nicely convey a nourishing, supporting feeling. The newer image, with the meditation mudra and dhammwheel less so, but it has its good points too.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All this is just to remind that symbols (Dream_Walker&amp;#039;s, or whatever might be considered or chosen) can be expected to evoke associations in viewers other than those intended by DhO.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 06:40:10 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603306</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T06:40:10Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603294</link> <description>re: &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;c&amp;#x2f;my_sites&amp;#x2f;view&amp;#x3f;groupId&amp;#x3d;2284367&amp;#x26;privateLayout&amp;#x3d;0"&gt;katy steger &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/u&gt; (10/9/14 4:41 PM as a reply to Chris J Macie)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks, Katy, for the skillfully relevant analysis. (And thanks to Jane Laurel Carrington: &amp;#034;…backing off and taking another tack is the best strategy…&amp;#034;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Equanimity (the 4th Brahmavihara) would have been more helpful &amp;#x2013; &lt;em&gt;upekkha&lt;/em&gt; -- a skillful resting place in self-sufficiency (or pehaps better, &amp;#039;a refuge, an abiding free-from-self&amp;#039;) in the face of recognizing lack of power over others&amp;#039; kharma, or samsara in general.* A stronger establishment of this could have pulled my writing back from that dig at &amp;#039;pragmatic&amp;#039; Buddhists. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Looking at it more closely, though -- perhaps it takes a really high level of skill to express equanimity in a convincing way to others -- the kind of skill G. Buddha is said to have shown in shaping his sayings to the mental biases of his listeners. (Which skill, btw, is s/t said to have involved his mastery of &amp;#039;psychic powers&amp;#039;, though he also didn&amp;#039;t encourage their use in general.) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lacking such skill, one might well blurt something out just to get noticed -- lacking the &lt;em&gt;sukha&lt;/em&gt; of internal equipoise, indulging the delusion that attracting attention will give one some sort of satisfaction (&lt;em&gt;sukha&lt;/em&gt;), and failing to assess the &lt;em&gt;dukkha&lt;/em&gt; that&amp;#039;s often more likely to ensue.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s a constant challenge in that people often can&amp;#039;t help but express biases (viewpoints, &lt;em&gt;&amp;#039;ditthi&amp;#039;&lt;/em&gt;), subtly or not so subtly, when they post in forums. This happens less frequently in DhO, than, say, in the Secular Buddhism website, where some of the main-stay contributors there can&amp;#039;t seem to make a point (often good points) without adding some disparging comment about &amp;#039;Theravada&amp;#039; or monastics. And that triggers my particular biases, such that I should perhaps not even open that website without doing first an hour or so of 4th-Jhana sitting, or other practice cultivating equanimity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* A great quotation from Stephen Levine (no doubt quoted from elsewhere): All that samsara out there is &lt;strong&gt;much&lt;br /&gt;to big&lt;/strong&gt; to think you can in any way &lt;strong&gt;control&lt;/strong&gt; it; BUT it&amp;#039;s &lt;strong&gt;the perfect size for letting-go of!&amp;#034;&lt;/strong&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 06:30:53 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603294</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T06:30:53Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603246</link> <description>Oh yah, I agree, definitely an illustrated clear version of it!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I did was a sketch, not anything to use. And joking about the &amp;#034;hardcores&amp;#034; here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Megan is a good illustrator... I&amp;#039;m going to ask her. Then I can render it on the computer from her drawing.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 04:55:54 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603246</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T04:55:54Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603241</link> <description>Still think an illustrated drawing would be better but I kinda like this hand better.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;sumoware&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;images&amp;#x2f;temp&amp;#x2f;xzphkamlflfbcxca&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 04:51:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603241</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T04:51:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602747</link> <description>Just messin around with font and placement. I&amp;#039;m sure someone can illustrate something proper and give it some &amp;#034;Fire&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The black one is for the TRULY hardcore dharma yogis!! ;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;DhO-2&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;1c7a1559-d3cf-48a9-b361-0d27f12ce98d" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;DhO-3&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;adabd559-3941-4f7c-9c04-69731e76a46e" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And... black metal intro... dandandanddadadaaaaaa....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;DhO-hc&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;70d43755-f11f-4758-aece-ec3dbecb0caf" /&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sat, 11 Oct 2014 03:57:43 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602747</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-11T03:57:43Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recovering old posts by a specific user?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602637</link> <description>Thank you Simon!! Thank the metaphorical God for tech-savvy folks like you</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 22:58:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602637</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T22:58:03Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602595</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Florian Weps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Finnell:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;...whoever is making a final decision on this logo and possible home page redesign...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Perhaps there is a middle ground to meet in?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;cuba&amp;#x2e;coventry&amp;#x2e;ac&amp;#x2e;uk&amp;#x2f;maedesign&amp;#x2f;files&amp;#x2f;2011&amp;#x2f;07&amp;#x2f;trees&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;SCNR ;) In my experience with projects, very few people actually know what to do and how to do it, and they should just do it; &amp;#034;middle ground&amp;#034; is almost always disappointing to all involved.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Funny illustration. Well please tell me, the very few people &amp;#034;who should just do it&amp;#034;... where are they and who are they?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:56:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602595</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T21:56:09Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602573</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Finnell:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;...whoever is making a final decision on this logo and possible home page redesign...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Perhaps there is a middle ground to meet in?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;cuba&amp;#x2e;coventry&amp;#x2e;ac&amp;#x2e;uk&amp;#x2f;maedesign&amp;#x2f;files&amp;#x2f;2011&amp;#x2f;07&amp;#x2f;trees&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;SCNR ;) In my experience with projects, very few people actually know what to do and how to do it, and they should just do it; &amp;#034;middle ground&amp;#034; is almost always disappointing to all involved.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:29:45 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602573</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T21:29:45Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602570</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Dream Walker:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Florian Weps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The second one caters more to my &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034; (in the sense of really committed) sentiments: Flames! Turn up the heat! Burn all the hindrances! The individual flames look too uniform to me, though. This is my favorite, but it needs more of the spicy sauce.&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Riffing on this flame idea......What makes the Dho different from every other forum??? well lots of stuff but to me it&amp;#039;s&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Open Enlightenment&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So what shows this idea the best?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think an open hand with a flame inside captures this.&lt;br /&gt; Here is a couple pictures that I found that illustrates a bit...none really do the job though...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edit:&lt;br /&gt;here is a little better photoshopped thing...kinda like this but maybe stylized or black and white...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;sumoware&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;images&amp;#x2f;temp&amp;#x2f;xzadkftimhlsdstb&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(commented to this a second ago, and it never showed up... Sorry if this duplicates.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Love this D! I really like this idea and the thought of DhO being about &amp;#034;Open Enlightenment&amp;#034;. Seems like this idea has some legs and the flame is resonating with a more people than the others. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I also agree it would be cool that it&amp;#039;s illustrated and simplified so to become a logo. I don&amp;#039;t have the best illustration skills, and didn&amp;#039;t get very good feedback on the work we did, so I&amp;#039;ll leave it up to someone else!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But that last redition in photoshop is pretty cool cutting and pasting action ;)</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:28:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602570</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T21:28:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602566</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Piers M:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Love it. That&amp;#039;s great. Makes me smile.&lt;br /&gt;Man, wish I could do all the funky stuff you guys get up to but no clue how to put pics into threads.&lt;br /&gt;Somehow that tech stuff just bypassed me.....(even though its probably v simple &lt;u&gt;if you know how&lt;/u&gt;!)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s actually kind of confusing. This is the only way I know how... You have to create a full reply, not a quick reply. Then attach your image and click preview. When you do that you have a link now to that image. Click in the body of reply and click the image icon next to smiley face. Put in the link and hit the green button. Hope you can follow that!</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:21:26 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602566</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T21:21:26Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602538</link> <description>Love it. That&amp;#039;s great. Makes me smile.&lt;br /&gt;Man, wish I could do all the funky stuff you guys get up to but no clue how to put pics into threads.&lt;br /&gt;Somehow that tech stuff just bypassed me.....(even though its probably v simple &lt;u&gt;if you know how&lt;/u&gt;!)</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 20:45:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602538</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T20:45:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recovering old posts by a specific user?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602527</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Simon Ekstrand:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The default cut off date for the recent posts button is 365 days, the date of the upgrade to Liferay 6.x is not involved.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have however raised the recent posts listings to include the last 10 years now, so you should get all of Tommy M&amp;#039;s (and other users) posts using the recent posts link now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You are awesome Simon ...I bow to you....&lt;br /&gt;I tested it and yes...the results for tommy&amp;#039;s posts match -498 results&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for fixing&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 20:39:41 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602527</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T20:39:41Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recovering old posts by a specific user?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602522</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Piers M:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;When exactly was the upgrade (if you know).&lt;br /&gt;Also, if you don&amp;#039;t mind what&amp;#039;s the ABC for searching for a specific posters posts?&lt;br /&gt;Piers&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The upgrade to Liferay 6.2 was performed this may, though I really don&amp;#039;t think it&amp;#039;s relevant to what&amp;#039;s being discussed in this thread.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 20:25:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602522</guid> <dc:creator>Simon Ekstrand</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T20:25:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602514</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Florian Weps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The second one caters more to my &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034; (in the sense of really committed) sentiments: Flames! Turn up the heat! Burn all the hindrances! The individual flames look too uniform to me, though. This is my favorite, but it needs more of the spicy sauce.&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Riffing on this flame idea......What makes the Dho different from every other forum??? well lots of stuff but to me it&amp;#039;s&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Open Enlightenment&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So what shows this idea the best?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think an open hand with a flame inside captures this.&lt;br /&gt; Here is a couple pictures that I found that illustrates a bit...none really do the job though...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;farm6&amp;#x2e;static&amp;#x2e;flickr&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;5565&amp;#x2f;14954117831_b5446b73c5_m&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dreamstime&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;royalty-free-stock-photo-heart-shaped-flame-image26017225" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;data3&amp;#x2e;whicdn&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;images&amp;#x2f;14933699&amp;#x2f;black-and-white-burst-of-color-color-flame-hand-Favim&amp;#x2e;com-141958_large&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;encrypted-tbn2&amp;#x2e;gstatic&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;images&amp;#x3f;q&amp;#x3d;tbn&amp;#x3a;ANd9GcRGDFwETOUbQsiQseCEn21unv-lY_6AJ0mAJu1fmZSLL1eNYD4-" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;a more stylized flame kinda like the &amp;#034;flame&amp;#034; point on top of the buddhas head in some statues...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;c2&amp;#x2e;staticflickr&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;4&amp;#x2f;3627&amp;#x2f;3428949696_784fe012b2_z&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edit:&lt;br /&gt;here is a little better photoshopped thing...kinda like this but maybe stylized or black and white...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;sumoware&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;images&amp;#x2f;temp&amp;#x2f;xzadkftimhlsdstb&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 20:15:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602514</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T20:15:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recovering old posts by a specific user?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602509</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Eric M W:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Does anyone remember Tommy M? His posts were always interesting and helpful, but when I look for &amp;#034;Recent Posts&amp;#034; filtered by user, I only get about 20 results, the earliest in 2013. However, when I google certain things, I can find posts by him dating back to 2010. Would anyone happen to know how I can get a page of *all* his posts? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are some older posts by other users too that I&amp;#039;d like to look up, but they don&amp;#039;t show up if they happened before the upgrade...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The default cut off date for the recent posts button is 365 days, the date of the upgrade to Liferay 6.x is not involved.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have however raised the recent posts listings to include the last 10 years now, so you should get all of Tommy M&amp;#039;s (and other users) posts using the recent posts link now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 20:07:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602509</guid> <dc:creator>Simon Ekstrand</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T20:07:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recovering old posts by a specific user?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602503</link> <description>Gotcha. Thanks.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 20:01:16 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602503</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T20:01:16Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recovering old posts by a specific user?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602500</link> <description>Thanks DW! What the hell is this wayback thing?? It&amp;#039;s so cool... You crazy kids and your google machines.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Piers, you have to find a post by the user you want first, and then under the icon it should say &amp;#034;Recent Posts.&amp;#034; It will give a list of posts by that user.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 19:47:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602500</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T19:47:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recovering old posts by a specific user?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602495</link> <description>When exactly was the upgrade (if you know).&lt;br /&gt;Also, if you don&amp;#039;t mind what&amp;#039;s the ABC for searching for a specific posters posts?&lt;br /&gt;Piers</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 19:40:20 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602495</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T19:40:20Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recovering old posts by a specific user?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602453</link> <description> used to do the same thing Eric....&lt;br /&gt;one way to do this as well as plumb the depths when the current Dho is down is to go to the wayback machine archive - &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;archive&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;"&gt;http://archive.org/web/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here is Tommy&amp;#039;s recent posts filtered there - &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2e;archive&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;20140329010335&amp;#x2f;http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;recent_posts&amp;#x3f;_19_groupThreadsUserId&amp;#x3d;1249249"&gt;http://web.archive.org/web/20140329010335/http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/recent_posts?_19_groupThreadsUserId=1249249&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It give a result of 498 posts....have fun diging deep&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 17:34:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602453</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T17:34:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602445</link> <description>I really like the collaborative thinking around the flames and smoke! Cool discussion &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Before we keep throwing more logo options out there (though, I wouldn&amp;#039;t suggest anyone stopping!).... at this point it would be very wise for someone like Daniel and the others who are moderators (&lt;strong&gt;whoever is making a final decision on this logo and possible home page redesign&lt;/strong&gt;), to consider this entire thread... all the designs offered and all the comments and thinking going on. Discuss it together, and consider next steps... and then get back to the general community here and give a direction. So that we can work toward it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the clear direction, feeling, and thinking that needs to be worked on?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s very clear in this thread, that few agree on one thing. We all have very different opinions and vision, which is really cool and so totally normal! Some of us come to agreement for what we like or don&amp;#039;t like... and some opinions are radically different. It never really works out in the end this way because it&amp;#039;s a stale mate.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This is why it&amp;#039;s vital to have a specific deciding body of people or one person to give direction in this situation.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t mean this as a judgement, but this is the general sense I get, and a sort of general summary, someone can tell me if they think I&amp;#039;m wrong:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. There are some people on here who don&amp;#039;t want to see much change when it comes to updating the logo and/or website. Though they do agree it needs a little work. They like it to be slightly flat, a bit boring but pleasant to look at, sort of in the vein of being &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034;, but a bit like it was made in 20 min. They don&amp;#039;t want this website to come off as corporate looking, too professional, or too &amp;#034;fluffy and flowy&amp;#034;... this way it keeps out a certain crowd. Possibly they like that the current site is a little bit hard to understand and dig through, and that helps keep the &amp;#034;mushroom culture&amp;#034; out of it... so it only serves the hardcore yogis. Basically, &amp;#034;Don&amp;#039;t make it too flashy!&amp;#034;... and &amp;#034;Let&amp;#039;s stay more underground here. We like it this way.&amp;#034; -- which is a valid place to come from!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. Another part of this community knows that things could be approached a little differently, and are willing to take that leap of faith. They want things a little more interesting, pushed in a bit of a new direction, and also be more simplified. They believe that this will help things become more organized and inviting to help more users generally.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe I&amp;#039;m wrong about this observation. Perhaps there is a middle ground to meet in?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s really cool to see the dynamic here unfold around such a thing!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 17:25:46 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602445</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T17:25:46Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Recovering old posts by a specific user?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602415</link> <description>Does anyone remember Tommy M? His posts were always interesting and helpful, but when I look for &amp;#034;Recent Posts&amp;#034; filtered by user, I only get about 20 results, the earliest in 2013. However, when I google certain things, I can find posts by him dating back to 2010. Would anyone happen to know how I can get a page of *all* his posts? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are some older posts by other users too that I&amp;#039;d like to look up, but they don&amp;#039;t show up if they happened before the upgrade...</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 16:47:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602415</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T16:47:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602404</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Simon Ekstrand:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Finnell:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Thanks for pointing this out Simon. Good point. I was doing layouts that could use images as links, in the body of the page. I&amp;#039;m not 100% positive, but I&amp;#039;m pretty sure this is simple enough to be doable in this template. We would need someone who knows a little more about the backend on this platform here to tweak it. I personally feel like this platform is fairly outdated ... but not really sure if would be possible or viable to migrate something of this nature to a more modern platform, which would have better options for themes, that would be more user friendly and design friendly. Wordpress has a system called Buddypress -  https://buddypress.org/ - that is specifically for community boards and such. Haven&amp;#039;t looked too deeply into it. Going to ask a friend who is more of a wizard in this subject.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi John,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t really agree that Liferay is outdated - it is actively developed as can be seen in the &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;github&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;liferay&amp;#x2f;liferay-portal"&gt;github repo&lt;/a&gt; and new release arrive regularly. The DhO was also upgraded to the latest Liferay release a few months back. Liferay certainly has its set of problems, it has been developed for a long time and carries around a lot of legacy gunk, but that&amp;#039;s true for many platforms, including wordpress.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There were discussions a while back on whether to merge the DhO with Awake networks/use the Awake networks technical platform which also included extensive discussions on the option of migrating to a new platform entirely. However Daniel opted for upgrading the existing Liferay installation so I doubt that moving to another platform is very likely at this point.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The DhO is much more than just this forum, and migrating to a different platform would be a lot of work. I think a much more realistic (and much less time consuming) option would be for someone to dig into the documentation and get really familiar with the Liferay theme&amp;#039;ing/templating systems. I&amp;#039;m sure a fine layout could be developed within the constraints of the existing Liferay platform. Also, even if a different platform (wordpress, joomla, etc.) were to be used, many of the same problems with layout/theme&amp;#039;ing would still exist, there would just be slightly different tradeoffs. Using a CMS always places certain restrictions on what can and can&amp;#039;t be done from a layout standpoint. But they also have the benefit of making content adding/updating much easier.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Simon, thanks for this comment! I totally agree... I thought it would be difficult to switch but it was just a thought. I think you&amp;#039;re right about having the same issues in any platform I&amp;#039;ve seen many in wordpress too. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I do know a technical wizard who is really proficient in wordpress and other platforms. I think if Daniel had a little bit of money to put forth in helping the design for the home page and even cleaning up the theme we are working in now and some of the bugs I&amp;#039;ve come across (if that was even desired around here), then I could ask for his technical help on that. I think he&amp;#039;s reasonable on his rate.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m pretty confident the design framework I&amp;#039;ve been pointing to in my redesign suggestions can be worked into a home page. Even if it were just an html page that lived on the server and which the links clicked into the platform as it is now. We could also go with a theme within the platform like you are mentioning too and see what they have going on. We would have to scour for a good one that we can play with. Or do what I&amp;#039;m suggesting where we do some very basic backend tweaking to get a page that basically links into the already existing categories and theme. And mayb try and do small visual tweaks to the current theme. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m simply pushing for the home page to help ease the user into the content with better visual organization and bite sized chunks. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for the productive and educated feedback! Much appreciated here.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 16:40:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602404</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T16:40:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602292</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;ftw:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;That&amp;#039;s a really nice macro. Yours?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s not me, it&amp;#039;s not mine, it&amp;#039;s not myself, haha&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s from a Scientific American Article/Blog&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;blogs&amp;#x2e;scientificamerican&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;but-not-simpler&amp;#x2f;2013&amp;#x2f;09&amp;#x2f;09&amp;#x2f;waxbows-the-incredible-beauty-of-a-blown-out-candle&amp;#x2f;"&gt;http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/but-not-simpler/2013/09/09/waxbows-the-incredible-beauty-of-a-blown-out-candle/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Just brainstorming, flame gone being synonymous with Nibbana, then there&amp;#039;s the Rainbow Body analogy, and smoke being impermanent and ephemeral like our thoughts and our bodies, anicca.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;#034; And like that , poof, &amp;#034;me&amp;#034; was gone.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;The Usual Suspects, (paraphrased)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 14:42:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602292</guid> <dc:creator>Psi Phi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T14:42:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602254</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Florian Weps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;Interesting... however, I think people who would be bothered by such Hindu allusions &lt;/span&gt;[fire symbolism]&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt; would be shocked rigid by outrageous claims to enlightenment as can be found here.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#039;Outrageous claims here&amp;#034;? meaning DhO? I don&amp;#039;t get it, the connection to noticing symbol usage associated with non-Buddhist Indian religion. If fire symbolism reminds one of, say, New Age Hindu flavored sects, one should be quite used to at least &amp;#039;colorful&amp;#039; claims to &amp;#039;enlightenment.&amp;#039;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;For obsessively nitpicky fun, I&amp;#039;ll point out the &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;accesstoinsight&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;tipitaka&amp;#x2f;sn&amp;#x2f;sn35&amp;#x2f;sn35&amp;#x2e;028&amp;#x2e;nymo&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;Fire Sermon&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt; and the etymology of &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;accesstoinsight&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;lib&amp;#x2f;authors&amp;#x2f;gunaratana&amp;#x2f;wheel351&amp;#x2e;html&amp;#x23;ch1&amp;#x2e;2"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;jhana&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That take on jhana as consuming fire is new to me, but also works. Some teacher (maybe it was Than-Geof) put it another way: that the kind of fire here is the slow steady burn of a candle flame (shielded from wind), like the steady, unflickering, non-moving intensity of jhanic awareness (at least as defined in some jhana systems). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Those pali words, like ours in English, can have meanings and applications all over the map. Another use / derivation from &lt;em&gt;jhapeti&lt;/em&gt; (to burn) is in &lt;em&gt;abhijja&lt;/em&gt; &amp;#034;&lt;strong&gt;covetousness&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#034;, as in &amp;#034;putting aside grief (&lt;em&gt;domanassa&lt;/em&gt; - literally mental &lt;em&gt;dukkha&lt;/em&gt;) and covetousness (&lt;em&gt;abhijja&lt;/em&gt;) for the world&amp;#034; (common Sutta intro to concentration practice, or also to sattipatthana practice). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the case of &lt;em&gt;abhijja,&lt;/em&gt; it&amp;#039;s the &amp;#039;&lt;em&gt;jja&lt;/em&gt;&amp;#039; burn thing with &amp;#039;&lt;em&gt;abhi&lt;/em&gt;-&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;beyond&amp;#039; (as in &amp;#039;&lt;em&gt;abhidhamma&lt;/em&gt;&amp;#039; -- beyond or higher dhamma, similar to Greek &amp;#039;&lt;em&gt;meta&lt;/em&gt;&amp;#039;). So &lt;em&gt;abhijja&lt;/em&gt; is &amp;#039;&lt;strong&gt;burning for things beyond one&amp;#039;s reach&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#039;, so to speak; maybe flaming lolipops.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 12:54:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602254</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T12:54:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602246</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Chris J Macie:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;u&gt;Florian Weps &lt;/u&gt; (10/9/14 4:53 AM as a reply to John Finnell.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&amp;#034;… Flames! Turn up the heat! Burn all the hindrances!…&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;u&gt;Megan Key&lt;/u&gt; (10/9/14 11:25 PM as areply to Florian Weps.)&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&amp;#034;I think my favorite is the flames as well, what if they looked a little wilder, something like this? …&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The fire/flame imagery is appealing, and, btw, appears to be the favorite kasina meditation object (in the form of a candle flame) in DhO.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A possible complication arises, however, in considering this theme in the context of (at least some) Buddhist traditions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Vedic / Brahmanistic traditions used fire / flames as a central symbol.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;... &lt;strong&gt;&amp;#039;festival of lights&amp;#039;&lt;/strong&gt; as part of the weekly Sunday ritual. The congregation files up to the altar-rail and each gets sort-of annointed at the forehead from a flame by one of the celebrants -- not unlike the &amp;#039;receiving communion&amp;#039; ritual in orthodox Christian churches. (There&amp;#039;s an Ananda Church near where I work in Palo Alto, in a building they bought from the Catholic Church. Actually, I got married there once, rather than in a court house or some Christian church.)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Interesting... however, I think people who would be bothered by such Hindu allusions would be shocked rigid by outrageous claims to enlightenment as can be found here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I really like Shiva. He meditates a lot, when he doesn&amp;#039;t smoke ganja. I think more deities should follow his example.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For obsessively nitpicky fun, I&amp;#039;ll point out the &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;accesstoinsight&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;tipitaka&amp;#x2f;sn&amp;#x2f;sn35&amp;#x2f;sn35&amp;#x2e;028&amp;#x2e;nymo&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;Fire Sermon&lt;/a&gt; and the etymology of &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;accesstoinsight&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;lib&amp;#x2f;authors&amp;#x2f;gunaratana&amp;#x2f;wheel351&amp;#x2e;html&amp;#x23;ch1&amp;#x2e;2"&gt;jhana&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe we can have flaming lollypops &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 11:40:43 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602246</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T11:40:43Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602238</link> <description>&lt;u&gt;Florian Weps &lt;/u&gt; (10/9/14 4:53 AM as a reply to John Finnell.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&amp;#034;… Flames! Turn up the heat! Burn all the hindrances!…&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;u&gt;Megan Key&lt;/u&gt; (10/9/14 11:25 PM as areply to Florian Weps.)&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&amp;#034;I think my favorite is the flames as well, what if they looked a little wilder, something like this? …&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The fire/flame imagery is appealing, and, btw, appears to be the favorite kasina meditation object (in the form of a candle flame) in DhO.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A possible complication arises, however, in considering this theme in the context of (at least some) Buddhist traditions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Vedic / Brahmanistic traditions used fire / flames as a central symbol. It is said that part of G.Buddha&amp;#039;s radical reshaping of Indian religious tradition was adopting the image of &amp;#039;cooling&amp;#039;, of quenching the flames of &lt;em&gt;lobha &lt;/em&gt;(desire, passion), &lt;em&gt;dosa&lt;/em&gt; (hatred), etc. as a goal of the Path; the word &lt;em&gt;Nibbana&lt;/em&gt; etymologically has to do with putting out fire. (GB&amp;#039;s clever tactic, however, was not attacking the flames directly, but simply depriving it of fuel.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Brahman, priestly caste had a central duty of maintaining the 3 sacrificial fires. Siddartha Gotama was born into the warrior, ruling caste, so he may have had a subtle bone to pick with the conceit of the priestly types. He (is said to have) said often that being a real Brahman, an &lt;em&gt;ariya&lt;/em&gt; or awakened noble one, has to do not with birth-right, but with cultivation and attainment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are some quotations from a quick scan (google) of related information:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;#034;Agni &lt;/strong&gt;(Sanskrit: &lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;अि# &lt;em&gt;Agni&lt;/em&gt;), (Tamil &lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;அ&amp;#034;#$ &lt;em&gt;Akkiņi&lt;/em&gt;) is a Hindu deity, one of the most important of the Vedic gods. He is &lt;strong&gt;the god of fire&lt;/strong&gt;[1] and the acceptor of sacrifices. The sacrifices made to Agni go to the deities because Agni is a messenger[2] from and to the other gods. He is ever-young, because the fire is re-lit every day, and also immortal. … Agni has three forms: fire, lightning and the Sun.[4] In Hindu scriptures, Agni is the God of Fire, and is present in many phases of life such as honouring of a birth (diva lamp), prayers (diva lamp), weddings (Yagna where the bride and groom circle 7 times) and death (cremation).&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #363f2f"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;#034;HAMAKUNDA (HOMAKUNDA)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #363f2f"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;: &lt;strong&gt;The fire alter, is the symbol of ancient &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #363f2f"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Vedic &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;r&lt;span style="color: #363f2f"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;ites&lt;/strong&gt;. It is through the fire element denoting divine consciousness, that we make offerings to the Gods. &lt;span style="color: #363f2f"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hindu sacraments are solemnized before the fire&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #363f2f"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Every aspect in the image of Nataraja represent an aspect of creation. The lord is surrounded on all sides by a &lt;strong&gt;circular ring of fire&lt;/strong&gt;. The ring represents the whole of creation. It is finite, cyclical and filled with &lt;strong&gt;energy or shakti shown here as flames&lt;/strong&gt;.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Shiva in his pleasant mood, seated on a high seat, with one leg folded while the other rests on the Apasmarapurusha, the deluded self. Two of his arms hold a snake or rosary or both in one hand &lt;strong&gt;and fire in the other&lt;/strong&gt;.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ac8138"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;DIYA&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #363f2f"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;: A popular type of candle used during &lt;span style="color: #363f2f"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;Diwali &lt;/em&gt;the &amp;#034;&lt;span style="color: #363f2f"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Festival of Lights&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #363f2f"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Re this last quotation &amp;#x2013; The Ananda Church (lineage of Parmahansa Yogananda) has a &lt;strong&gt;&amp;#039;festival of lights&amp;#039;&lt;/strong&gt; as part of the weekly Sunday ritual. The congregation files up to the altar-rail and each gets sort-of annointed at the forehead from a flame by one of the celebrants -- not unlike the &amp;#039;receiving communion&amp;#039; ritual in orthodox Christian churches. (There&amp;#039;s an Ananda Church near where I work in Palo Alto, in a building they bought from the Catholic Church. Actually, I got married there once, rather than in a court house or some Christian church.)</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 10:34:56 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602238</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T10:34:56Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602198</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Finnell:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Thanks for pointing this out Simon. Good point. I was doing layouts that could use images as links, in the body of the page. I&amp;#039;m not 100% positive, but I&amp;#039;m pretty sure this is simple enough to be doable in this template. We would need someone who knows a little more about the backend on this platform here to tweak it. I personally feel like this platform is fairly outdated ... but not really sure if would be possible or viable to migrate something of this nature to a more modern platform, which would have better options for themes, that would be more user friendly and design friendly. Wordpress has a system called Buddypress -  https://buddypress.org/ - that is specifically for community boards and such. Haven&amp;#039;t looked too deeply into it. Going to ask a friend who is more of a wizard in this subject.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi John,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t really agree that Liferay is outdated - it is actively developed as can be seen in the &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;github&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;liferay&amp;#x2f;liferay-portal"&gt;github repo&lt;/a&gt; and new release arrive regularly. The DhO was also upgraded to the latest Liferay release a few months back. Liferay certainly has its set of problems, it has been developed for a long time and carries around a lot of legacy gunk, but that&amp;#039;s true for many platforms, including wordpress.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There were discussions a while back on whether to merge the DhO with Awake networks/use the Awake networks technical platform which also included extensive discussions on the option of migrating to a new platform entirely. However Daniel opted for upgrading the existing Liferay installation so I doubt that moving to another platform is very likely at this point.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The DhO is much more than just this forum, and migrating to a different platform would be a lot of work. I think a much more realistic (and much less time consuming) option would be for someone to dig into the documentation and get really familiar with the Liferay theme&amp;#039;ing/templating systems. I&amp;#039;m sure a fine layout could be developed within the constraints of the existing Liferay platform. Also, even if a different platform (wordpress, joomla, etc.) were to be used, many of the same problems with layout/theme&amp;#039;ing would still exist, there would just be slightly different tradeoffs. Using a CMS always places certain restrictions on what can and can&amp;#039;t be done from a layout standpoint. But they also have the benefit of making content adding/updating much easier.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 08:20:11 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602198</guid> <dc:creator>Simon Ekstrand</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T08:20:11Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602168</link> <description>That&amp;#039;s a really nice macro. Yours?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 06:57:24 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602168</guid> <dc:creator>ftw</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T06:57:24Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602154</link> <description>Can you write Dharma Overground in smoke letters?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, not really related, but cool, when a candle is blown out the smoke makes rainbows, (like nibbana)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;theamazingpics&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;wp-content&amp;#x2f;uploads&amp;#x2f;2013&amp;#x2f;04&amp;#x2f;Candle-smoke-rainbow&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 06:18:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602154</guid> <dc:creator>Psi Phi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T06:18:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602123</link> <description>I think my favorite is the flames as well, what if they looked a little wilder, something like this? Just a quick thought. Fun lively discussion! I&amp;#039;m so glad people are thinking toward what is possible. </description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 04:25:30 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602123</guid> <dc:creator>Megan Key</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T04:25:30Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602027</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Simon Ekstrand:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It might be worth mentioning that (as I understand it) the DhO pages are created using Liferay/the Liferay content editor so there are likely restrictions to what is possible to accomplish from a layout standpoint - it&amp;#039;s not just editing plain html. Liferay uses stuff like &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;liferay&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;documentation&amp;#x2f;liferay-portal&amp;#x2f;6&amp;#x2e;1&amp;#x2f;development&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;ai&amp;#x2f;creating-liferay-them-7"&gt;themes&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;liferay&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;documentation&amp;#x2f;liferay-portal&amp;#x2f;6&amp;#x2e;1&amp;#x2f;development&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;ai&amp;#x2f;lp-6-1-dgen05-creating-liferay-layout-templates-0"&gt;layout templates&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There was a discussion a few months back regarding the &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5527486&amp;#x3f;_19_threadView&amp;#x3d;flat"&gt;DhO Liferay theme&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Thanks for pointing this out Simon. Good point. I was doing layouts that could use images as links, in the body of the page. I&amp;#039;m not 100% positive, but I&amp;#039;m pretty sure this is simple enough to be doable in this template. We would need someone who knows a little more about the backend on this platform here to tweak it. I personally feel like this platform is fairly outdated ... but not really sure if would be possible or viable to migrate something of this nature to a more modern platform, which would have better options for themes, that would be more user friendly and design friendly. Wordpress has a system called Buddypress -  https://buddypress.org/ - that is specifically for community boards and such. Haven&amp;#039;t looked too deeply into it. Going to ask a friend who is more of a wizard in this subject.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 21:44:45 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602027</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T21:44:45Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602022</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Nikolai .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Derek&amp;#039;s is good but it looks like it wants to be a sister site of the following dharma sites. And the latter has a history of dismissing the dho.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.dharmawheel.net&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.dhammawheel.com&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I agree. I also never understood this style of a wheel. It makes me feel like we are going yahting or sailing.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 21:38:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602022</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T21:38:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602000</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Chris J Macie:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Yesterday was an &amp;#039;uposatha&amp;#039; day (new or full moon) for Theravadan (and other traditional) buddhists. In Theravadan tradition, at least, they pay extra attention to &lt;em&gt;metta&lt;/em&gt; (and it&amp;#039;s close cognate &lt;em&gt;mittata&lt;/em&gt;, &amp;#039;friendship&amp;#039;) on these days.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Looks like the &amp;#039;pragmatic&amp;#039; Buddhists, in their greater wisdom, are developing a different sort of tradition?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Hi Chris, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for your first paragraph. Uposatha days do offer a chance to deepen practice including social practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And about your second comment, I think you well put your finger on it:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;There was some hesitation to deploying the dig at &amp;#039;pragmatic&amp;#039; Buddhism, but given the overall irritation level, it seemed satisfying to share in the spirit of the occasion.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;So I&amp;#039;d like to say, please considering take a note from my&lt;em&gt; mistakes&amp;#039;&lt;/em&gt; experience, and be careful with gratifying these emotions, that this is a part of metta: to train in restraining one&amp;#039;s hostile outgoing feelings in order to encouter them observantly  in quiet meditation. One starts with restraining small digs at low-hanging fruit and learns to not spark bigger, more volatile fuel, because sometimes the consequences are tragic and un-correctable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The dhammapada (paraphrased): [ill-will begets ill-will, this is the law, ancient and immortal]. This is causlity: a seed grows its plant. So to take a dig at another grows more &amp;#034;take opportunisitic, gratifying digs&amp;#034; in the world in which you live, and this undermines trust and care and assures that you live in a place in which people feed aggression with aggression. Such a small comment can cause a huge field to grow in ripe terrain, like posion ivy.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While if I just read your first paragraph-- a reminder to metta ~ friendliness ~ it is a simple reminder in a thread with a some angry posters and &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;youtube&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;watch&amp;#x3f;v&amp;#x3d;v_7yEPNUXsU"&gt;that metta is probably a field you want to live in and seed, I speculate. &lt;/a&gt;&amp;#034;The man who planted trees&amp;#034; still my all-time favorite animation. (et puis, pour les francophones: &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;youtube&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;watch&amp;#x3f;v&amp;#x3d;7Rn6trL3-54"&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rn6trL3-54&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, yes, bring on the Pali. Maybe we should have a Pali study group here? I am waaaaay behind my peers in study there and it&amp;#039;s neat linguistically, to me.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 21:20:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602000</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T21:20:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601991</link> <description>Derek&amp;#039;s is good but it looks like it wants to be a sister site of the following dharma sites. And the latter has a history of dismissing the dho.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.dharmawheel.net&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.dhammawheel.com</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 20:53:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601991</guid> <dc:creator>Nikolai .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T20:53:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601983</link> <description>It might be worth mentioning that (as I understand it) the DhO pages are created using Liferay/the Liferay content editor so there are likely restrictions to what is possible to accomplish from a layout standpoint - it&amp;#039;s not just editing plain html. Liferay uses stuff like &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;liferay&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;documentation&amp;#x2f;liferay-portal&amp;#x2f;6&amp;#x2e;1&amp;#x2f;development&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;ai&amp;#x2f;creating-liferay-them-7"&gt;themes&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;liferay&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;documentation&amp;#x2f;liferay-portal&amp;#x2f;6&amp;#x2e;1&amp;#x2f;development&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;ai&amp;#x2f;lp-6-1-dgen05-creating-liferay-layout-templates-0"&gt;layout templates&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There was a discussion a few months back regarding the &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5527486&amp;#x3f;_19_threadView&amp;#x3d;flat"&gt;DhO Liferay theme&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 20:45:23 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601983</guid> <dc:creator>Simon Ekstrand</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T20:45:23Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601956</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Derek Cameron:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;And another one&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;i&amp;#x2e;imgur&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;yRIXML9&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really like Derek&amp;#039;s. It loses the military feel without going too far in the other direction (too &amp;#039;soft&amp;#039;). You want to encourage gender diversity whilst not losing the spirit of the place (i.e. &amp;#039;hardcore&amp;#039;, as opposed to flowery easy-going practise). It also has a charm to it and is visually appealing. Good job!</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 20:17:11 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601956</guid> <dc:creator>Martin Potter</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T20:17:11Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601917</link> <description>Just to add my 2 cents:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I like the Group 2 logos the most, all but the flag. I prefer the triangle, then the eye, then the two eyes with wavy hair, in that order.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really like the redesign of the front page. It is way too user-unfriendly at this point.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 19:42:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601917</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T19:42:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601864</link> <description>This is a thought on minimalism... just throwing more ideas out there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;DhO-logo-placement4&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;586b5fcb-5339-4976-8c75-139afd6fa2dc" /&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 19:06:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601864</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T19:06:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601789</link> <description>Thank you all for your constructive comments, really appreciate it! This is a great conversation!! &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Without going back and replying with quote to everyone just wanted to hit on a couple points. Appologize in advance for the length of my response!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- As a graphic designer of 10+ years the only time I ever use upper case is with a logo. You&amp;#039;d see it alot if you looked around. Sometimes its the details in how the letters or kerned (space between) that helps the eye, but I&amp;#039;m totally open to giving some revisions on any of these.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- A logo is symbolic, what else would it be? You could just put some bold text in helvetica with no symbol next to it, and that would make it super simple austere and non-symbolic. It could work... we could go in that direction. Makes me think of old scandinavian graphic design where it&amp;#039;s just black on white bold type that is set really well, with no imagery.&lt;br /&gt;Something kind of like this style... envision the &amp;#034;Dharma Overground&amp;#034; similar to how &amp;#034;Helvetica&amp;#034; is writen below and rest of site is only bold type headers with chunks of paragraph information, could even have very simple symbols for each category, like just a circle or triangle.. etc: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;41a790b7c30bcf9a0e55ee5eca2b03da&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;ea5b8392-e571-4c9e-84e9-dc75f65ec0af" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- All Home Page images I put in there are a quick way to give an example of breaking up information in an interesting way... not to be solidified in stone. Any of those images can be changed out and tweaked. But I wanted to show the concept of breaking up information in this way. Basically I strongly feel that having a wall of text is not the best way to introduce yourself. (and I personally love words and writing, so I understand wanting to do this!)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Imagine for a second... introducing yourself to someone in daily life, by telling them a huge story about yourself, all your boundaries, who you are, and are not, and you go on and on like this for 30min, without giving the other party a chance to ask questions! Not even a hardcore Dharma yogi like myself wants to sit and read for an hour before figuring out where to look for quality practical information. At the very least please parse this down to smaller pieces, so we get to the point quick! I&amp;#039;m personally curious, as a meditator of 5 years, in finding out practical meditation advice so I can go sit and get this thing done. Give me bite size chunks to work with so I can get to the source, for my particular path problem.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- I know Daniel has a lot of great write ups about what this site is about. And it&amp;#039;s in various places. But, I want to ask the question, because I&amp;#039;ve heard it from a few in this thread who might fear some kind of change if the site is more &amp;#034;welcoming&amp;#034;: Is this about alienating people to just a few who claim to be &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034;, or is it about helping anybody who is on the path? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Even some of the most hardcore do not want to spend too much time wading through words before accessing quality informative practical information. But this is just my opinion!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Any way we can break up content to be more of preview with a header (image helps with this) can ease the search burden and help guide the user. Why not make it more streamlined? I would love to use this site without out going crazy trying to dig around for content which is in various strange categories only to leave after an hour or more of searching with little information taken away, but a bunch of peoples opinions I had to wade through. Where&amp;#039;s the Gold? Organization and simplicity is key to helping people. The home page design we created is modular, consider what content you want to feature from the get go, and it can be done. What&amp;#039;s the bigger picture this community wants to offer?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Any logo we created can be tweaked. I&amp;#039;m going to post in here all of the variations we did. It will be difficult ultimately for a community of this sort to pick one from all the options everyone has provided, because everyone has a different opinion. It&amp;#039;s good to get a variety though to see what has been offered! &lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;DhO-Logo-Grid1&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;c5c174c9-4066-46e9-934c-eabb52a35d85" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;DhO-Logo-Grid2&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;681d99de-c13f-4b4a-84f8-983725e477b3" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;DhO-Logo-Grid3&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;4f774d87-3ce6-4c03-b4ff-25fd3b40ed10" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;DhO-Logo-Grid5&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;b504e4a9-daee-4227-8467-12077cefbe35" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Probably Daniel and some of the moderators can make a team to take all comments and various logo work, and make an educated decision. Otherwise it will just go on and on in debates and opinions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Hopefully the ideas we shared in our presentation can help the thinking and options for what this site can offer, and how to present information clearly and easily. I personally don&amp;#039;t think that by doing this, you will open the flood gates for people who are not &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034;. I think it would simply serve to help more meditators on the path.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- I&amp;#039;m not tied to any particular logo being chosen, but I do strongly feel that a better organization of content would be vital to helping people on the path. In the big picture of life, that&amp;#039;s really what this is all about (in my humble opinion)... but I&amp;#039;m not the one who created this community!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hope this all helps &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt; Mucho Metta to you all!!</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 17:32:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601789</guid> <dc:creator>John Finnell</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T17:32:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601749</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jenny:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Claudiu, I find your arguments flimsy and spurious. It is hard for me to believe you actually believe you have a viable position in what you just wrote, but whatever. . .  It is emphatically not &amp;#034;sexist&amp;#034; of &lt;em&gt;me&lt;/em&gt; to cite U.S. federal law. And as a fellow moderator, I would expect you to hold people here accountable to the law governing speech.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s true, it&amp;#039;s not sexist of you to cite U.S. federal law. However, I made the leap, from the way you presented it, that you supported the law, and that&amp;#039;s what I was referring to. Now I don&amp;#039;t have to make the leap since you said you &amp;#034;absolutely agree with its existence as necessary&amp;#034;. [EDIT: To be clear, if you had instead said something like, &amp;#034;I understand this law is sexist, and as a feminist I can&amp;#039;t support this law as it is against my ideals of treating women and men as equals, but the law&amp;#039;s the law&amp;#034;, then I would have withdrawn my point.]&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, here is my argument again. We have two statements:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) &amp;#034;Feminism is the radical notion that women should be treated as equals.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;2) &amp;#034;I absolutely agree with [the existence of the law which says that &amp;#034;women are a protected class under the law&amp;#034; and that &amp;#034;men are not a protected class&amp;#034;] [...]&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now clearly, such a law is completely against the notion that women should be treated as equals, as it is specifically written to treat women differently than men. It is a sexist law because sexism is &amp;#034;prejudice or discrimination based on a person&amp;#039;s sex or gender&amp;#034;, and the law specifically discriminates based on sex or gender. You can argue that it is &amp;#034;necessary to level out the long history of disempowering women on the basis of their being women&amp;#034; but that&amp;#039;s an argument from effect - from what the effect of the law should be - and not an argument based on what the law actually is, which is the systematic, institutionalized treatment of women differently from men. Do you agree?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So we have only two possibilities:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) You are not a feminist, because feminism is the notion that women should be treated as equals, and you support a law that treats women differently than men.&lt;br /&gt;2) You are a feminist, but feminism is *not* the notion that women should be treated as equals, because feminists support laws that treat women differently than men.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Which is it?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you can&amp;#039;t follow this argument and acknowledge it or reply meaningfully to it, then there&amp;#039;s really no reason for us to continue discussing feminism.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jenny:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Now listen here: I&amp;#039;ve wasted enough of my precious time and energy on this issue to spend any more on people who will never understand or put themselves in others&amp;#039; historical and cultural shoes. I was just on another thread here where a man was basically yelling at Megan and John, graphic designers offering free Web design presentations for this site, because in their presentation they said the current logo here was &amp;#034;too masculine&amp;#034; and unwelcoming of diversity. This member here who insulted them, a man, claimed that 99% of meditators are men and that this draw to meditation is hardwired biologically to sex; he said these two &amp;#034;just alienated 99%&amp;#034; of the membership by saying the logo was too masculine and that they wanted to welcome diversity. So, you see, don&amp;#039;t you? I land on threads here, and there is all too often someone here spouting some unsupported nonsense like this and turning it into a reason to verbally attack someone. So if you choose to persist in thinking you and certain others here have no learning to do with regard to gender and other diversity, and that the culture has no part in the fact that so few women post here, then you have an entrenched sociopolitical and cultural pathology manifesting here indeed.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, I just saw that thread, and it was a bit ridiculous, especially after someone looked up the stats and found that there are actually more woman meditators than men. Clearly it has something to do with the way the DhO itself is, and I am entirely open to discussing these things. I&amp;#039;m even open to discussing feminism, as you can see here by me discussing feminism with you. I am not sure why you think that I think that I have &amp;#034;no learning to do with regard to gender and other diversity&amp;#034;, I&amp;#039;m just pointing out some contradictions inherent in feminism. Feminism is not the end-all be-all of gender and diversity. Being pro-feminist does not necessarily entail being pro-equality of the sexes. Not being a feminist doesn&amp;#039;t necessarily entail being a sexist. To conflate these things is to invite a lot of discord into these conversations!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jenny:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I want to add that I have wonderful friends here who are men and who do understand.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Okay, so it&amp;#039;s not just me being a man that causes me to disagree with you, since other men do agree with you. Similarly, it&amp;#039;s not just you being a woman that makes you a feminist, since there are many &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;womenagainstfeminism&amp;#x2e;tumblr&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;"&gt;women who are not feminists&lt;/a&gt;.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 15:51:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601749</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T15:51:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601731</link> <description>I too don&amp;#039;t want DhO to fall apart. And I endorse your sense that Mara has been having a good day. Mara has been walking all over people&amp;#039;s faces and having a good laugh at our expense!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Metta practice is a terrifically effective antidote to aversion, although for some people it&amp;#039;s an impossible practice. But putting it out there is a good thing. In any situation where people&amp;#039;s views become polarized, and wars of words lead nowhere, backing off and taking another tack is the best strategy. Everyone suffers, and sometimes suffering manifests in ways that pit one group of people against another, and somtimes one group can rightfully claim a special place in the hierarchy of suffering. But as one of my therapists once told me, this isn&amp;#039;t a contest. It does make sense, I think, to craft policies that minimize opportunities for people to harm one another. But what must underlie such policies is attention to the goal of waking up, which is our primary focus here.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have confidence that all will be well. </description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 15:36:24 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601731</guid> <dc:creator>Jane Laurel Carrington</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T15:36:24Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601589</link> <description>I agree with Florian&amp;#039;s comments on the logos.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Personally, the whole idea of a symbolic logo seems a little excessive to me, carrying connotations with brands, commercialism, and the projecting of a public identity/persona. I&amp;#039;d advocate something very minimal that doesn&amp;#039;t try to add much to the name.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I agree that the top secret/military connotations of the current logo are too masculine, but on the other hand they do succeed in succinctly conveying the intended qualities of the site in being serious, goal-oriented, and &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I just hope the presentation doesn&amp;#039;t now swing to the other extreme of being eagre to appeal to as many people as possible, holding people&amp;#039;s hands with lots of pictures (sorry, a little harsh, I know), etc. I actually think there&amp;#039;s something to be said for making a first impression with a giant wall of text, my thinking being that those put off by this are unlikely to benefit from this site anyway (especially considering the often gruelling task of persevering through the DN before SE).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Greater gender balance (or should I say, any gender balance to speak of) would be very welcome, but if possible I&amp;#039;d like to see that occur without opening the floodgates, as it were (yes, my Shadow is a total snob, and I&amp;#039;m not proud of it).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you Megan &amp;amp; John for your generous contributions.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 12:30:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601589</guid> <dc:creator>B B</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T12:30:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601576</link> <description>I&amp;#039;d be disappointed if DhO fell apart. It&amp;#039;s the closest to a &lt;em&gt;kalyana-mitta&lt;/em&gt;-community I&amp;#039;ve found, in terms of breadth and depth, even though it&amp;#039;s not quite transcended &lt;em&gt;samsara&lt;/em&gt;. No need to pursue further -- this thread inspired a sort of gratitude for &lt;em&gt;anicca&lt;/em&gt;. Maybe it was all a subtle reflection of the &amp;#039;blood-red&amp;#039; full moon lunar eclipse; maybe &lt;em&gt;Mara&lt;/em&gt; just had a good day. (Pardon the pre-occupation with Pali words.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There was some hesitation to deploying the dig at &amp;#039;pragmatic&amp;#039; Buddhism, but given the overall irritation level, it seemed satisfying to share in the spirit of the occasion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanx for replying.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 11:55:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601576</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T11:55:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601573</link> <description>Hi Chris&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Chris J Macie:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Yesterday was an &amp;#039;uposatha&amp;#039; day (new or full moon) for Theravadan (and other traditional) buddhists. In Theravadan tradition, at least, they pay extra attention to &lt;em&gt;metta&lt;/em&gt; (and it&amp;#039;s close cognate &lt;em&gt;mittata&lt;/em&gt;, &amp;#039;friendship&amp;#039;) on these days.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Looks like the &amp;#039;pragmatic&amp;#039; Buddhists, in their greater wisdom, are developing a different sort of tradition?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Looks like you are somehow disappointed by something, but I can&amp;#039;t quite put my finger on it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That we are not pretending to be nice to each other all the time? That we don&amp;#039;t collectively observe the lunar calendar? That we don&amp;#039;t discuss metta bhavana enough? That we are not wise enough? That we are not orthodox enough? Not Buddhist enough? Not lineage-approved? Sangha-Splitters? Something is bothering you, obviously.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you want to pursue this, feel free to start a new thread. This one is past its &amp;#034;best before&amp;#034; date.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 11:41:04 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601573</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T11:41:04Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601566</link> <description>Yesterday was an &amp;#039;uposatha&amp;#039; day (new or full moon) for Theravadan (and other traditional) buddhists. In Theravadan tradition, at least, they pay extra attention to &lt;em&gt;metta&lt;/em&gt; (and it&amp;#039;s close cognate &lt;em&gt;mittata&lt;/em&gt;, &amp;#039;friendship&amp;#039;) on these days.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Looks like the &amp;#039;pragmatic&amp;#039; Buddhists, in their greater wisdom, are developing a different sort of tradition?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 11:02:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601566</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T11:02:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601552</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jenny:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;So next go ahead and say I started it. Again. I mean, why not? Let&amp;#039;s feed the trolls. Let&amp;#039;s divide and conquer. Let try really hard not to hear and not to understand the Other. Let&amp;#039;s let this sockpuppet have another laugh at the Buddhists and AF practitioners here! &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nah. This is not really serving any good purpose any more. I for one would welcome the end of this thread, even if I started it myself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m all for discussing stuff which I find difficult to wrap my head around. And the kind and intensity of the reactions to discussing women&amp;#039;s (and men&amp;#039;s - men get hurt by patriarchy, too) interests in questioning and changing the social status quo is indeed telling, and, in my opinion, worthy of very close inspection, contemplation, tracing back, fully comprehending, and uprooting by anyone interested in the Dharma or similar teachings.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t like the &amp;#034;but not in front of the children/trolls/neighbors&amp;#034; sentiment at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I would like to keep it well separate from the important and, to me, very interesting subject of the intersection of spiritual and social liberation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 10:21:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601552</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T10:21:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601548</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;If you are part of the men&amp;#039;s rights movement, then I&amp;#039;m afraid I can&amp;#039;t help you or even intelligibly converse with you.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You are right. It is clear that you can&amp;#039;t intelligibly converse with me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to that you are mocking a group on the basis of sex. And you are mocking a contributer based on the assumption that they belong to that group. That is rude, offensive, uncalled-for and also against the newly announced rules.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;li&gt;No taunting, mocking, or intimidation of an individual or a group on the basis of race/ethnicity, sex, disability (including mental illness), sexual orientation, religious preference, or spiritual practice&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your comment, especially coming from a mod, makes me feel unwelcome in this forum.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 09:58:45 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601548</guid> <dc:creator>Trial And Error</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T09:58:45Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601544</link> <description>Hi Megan and John,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m really pleased, and grateful for your contribution, thanks! Web design and usability considerations require quite a bit of knowledge and skill. I&amp;#039;m not a web designer nor do I have graphical skills or experience. So please take my reactions as just that - gut-level reactions from a participant here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yeah, the home page is totally overloaded with information. I like the idea of making it a landing page, to drill deeper. Is there a good way to guide visitors to the major parts - the wiki, the forum, and the janitorial stuff like posting rules? I.e. I&amp;#039;d love people to have a sense of our newly minted posting/moderation rules &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; they sign up and start contributing to the discussion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The pod people image for the forum is a bit creepy, to my tastes. Is that how we come across? I&amp;#039;d prefer something conveying more personal, speech-based discussion, a lawn with people sitting around chatting or something.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I like the tandem cycle for &amp;#034;links&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The messages one is quite apt &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The wiki is not just a dictionary, but contains the text of entire books.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, the logo designs: they certainly are un-threatening.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The first one didn&amp;#039;t come across as trees, my first association was &amp;#034;lollypops&amp;#034;! I like the symbolism, the way they resemble the D and O letters and so on. Generally, too bland for my jaded tastes, too pastel, too much &amp;#034;community center&amp;#034;, too little &amp;#034;autonomous space&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The second one caters more to my &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034; (in the sense of really committed) sentiments: Flames! Turn up the heat! Burn all the hindrances! The individual flames look too uniform to me, though. This is my favorite, but it needs more of the spicy sauce.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The all-seeing eye of the third variation isn&amp;#039;t my thing. Reminds me of the Lord of the Rings movies too much, where I didn&amp;#039;t like it either - the design, I mean.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 09:19:39 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601544</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T09:19:39Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601539</link> <description>I like Edd&amp;#039;s logo.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for the home page I like the current one as it is. I like the serious feel of it.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 09:04:41 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601539</guid> <dc:creator>Trial And Error</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T09:04:41Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601536</link> <description>Claudiu,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If a black man were on here and made one mention (which is all I did) in advocacy for civil rights for people of color, and &lt;em&gt;because of that advocacy of people of color &lt;/em&gt;someone else ranted, yelled, called that person a bully, and for 2 entire days intimidated this person with &amp;#034;GET OUT&amp;#034; until that person did get out of such a hostile environment, would you not say that the intimidated man was a target of dicriminatory hate speech? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Right. So same deal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I&amp;#039;ve noted before and you refuse to hear or acknowledge, many other sociopolitical hierarchies were mentioned and even listed on that thread. When I added on to that with a brief mention of post-feminist theory, which you still seem not to even understand, all hell broke loose. Which does tell me some things about the nature of the turf that is being defended. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So next go ahead and say I started it. Again. I mean, why not? Let&amp;#039;s feed the trolls. Let&amp;#039;s divide and conquer. Let try really hard not to hear and not to understand the Other. Let&amp;#039;s let this sockpuppet have another laugh at the Buddhists and AF practitioners here! </description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 08:58:43 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601536</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T08:58:43Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Enough Drama</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601527</link> <description>If you are part of the men&amp;#039;s rights movement, then I&amp;#039;m afraid I can&amp;#039;t help you or even intelligibly converse with you. So, happy trails.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Regardless of where you take your personal moral reference, here members are expected to follow the new DhO conduct rules, which specifically name the legally protected class provisions I&amp;#039;ve referred to.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 08:34:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601527</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T08:34:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601525</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Chris J Macie:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;*People here are, no doubt, aware of her paper &amp;#034;From Buddhist Hippies to Buddhist Geeks: The Emergence of Buddhist Postmodernism?&amp;#034;, Journal of Global Buddhism Vol. 15 (2014): 15-33 (available on-line)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;P.S. Ann Gleig may also be known here for her earlier paper --  &amp;#034;Wedding the Personal and Impersonal in &lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;West Coast Vipassana:&lt;/span&gt; A Dialogical Encounter between Buddhism and Psychotherapy&amp;#034;,  Journal of Global Buddhism 13 (2012): 129-146 (also available online) -- as this paper provides hard documentation that backs-up Daniel&amp;#039;s points (in MCTB about the vapidity of much of the popular scene in Western Buddhism. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ann contrasts/compares &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;IMS&lt;/span&gt; (Massachusetts) as &amp;#039;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;East Coast Vipassana&lt;/span&gt;&amp;#039; with &lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;SRMC (Spirit Rock, &lt;/span&gt;California) as the &amp;#039;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;West Coast Vipassana&amp;#039;&lt;/span&gt; variant.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That paper especially caught my attention, as a ballroom/nightclub dance afficianado, in that &lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&amp;#039;West Coast Swing&amp;#039;&lt;/span&gt; (slower, bluesy music) is a personal favorite, as distinct from &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&amp;#039;East Coast Swing&amp;#039;&lt;/span&gt; that&amp;#039;s high-school type rock-n-roll, that&amp;#039;s for teenagers (of all ages).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(But this is not to take sides with SRMC -- see narration of my experience at a &amp;#039;concentration&amp;#039; retreat there, in the thread &amp;#034;RE: Just Started Kasina practice...&amp;#034;.)</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 08:32:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601525</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T08:32:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: the dharmaoverground logo</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601512</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Dream Walker:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;The ratio of men to women in meditation is something like 99:1.&lt;/span&gt; When you see statistics like that, you can bet that &amp;#034;accessibility&amp;#034; is not the issue: it&amp;#039;s likely biological. The figure looks rather similar to the 100:0 women-to-men ratio found in the category &amp;#034;people who are able to give birth&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Get rid of a logo because it&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;too masculine&amp;#034;? Well done, you just alienated 99% of your audience.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not even sorry to say I think the designs are horrible. Especially the weird &amp;#034;mind control&amp;#034; image for Discussion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you Edd for your wonderfully thoughtful comments. When I see your statistics like that, I can bet that polarizing comments meant to start arguments are about to erupt. ...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not to polarize, but to (why didn&amp;#039;t anyone) question -- the documentation for 99:1 men:women? (In fact, all too much positioned polarization in this forum, rather than 1) checking sources / data, 2) exploring viewpoints as interpretations of sources, 3) the nature of the belief in them,...)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, the demographic numbers for the (UK/USA) &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;Vipassana / Insight Meditation Movement are about 2:1 women to men&lt;/span&gt;. (Could cite papers, e.g. by Gil Fronsdal, to begin documentation search, if anyone&amp;#039;s into that.) So, would, off-hand, suspect about the same ratio for the Secular Buddhist scene. (Gil recently began calling his scene &amp;#034;Natural Buddhism&amp;#034;, which looks, smells, and tastes a lot like the &amp;#039;Secular&amp;#039; flavor.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edd -- did you mistype? A jest? Or (could well be) 99:1 holds true for &lt;strong&gt;hardcore Dharma, BGeeks, etc.?&lt;/strong&gt; (What Ann Gleig calls the &amp;#039;post-modern Buddhists&amp;#039;.*)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another data point -- w&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;eekend retreats at Tathagata Meditation Center&lt;/span&gt; (San Jose, CA; Vietnamese congregation; Burmese-Mahasi sangha) have &lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;20-30 women, and 5-10 men&lt;/span&gt; (at least at the 4 or 5 weekends I&amp;#039;ve attended).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Or I quess the question could be &amp;#034;What do you mean by &amp;#039;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;meditation&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#039; &amp;#034;?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*People here are, no doubt, aware of her paper &amp;#034;From Buddhist Hippies to Buddhist Geeks: The Emergence of Buddhist Postmodernism?&amp;#034;, Journal of Global Buddhism Vol. 15 (2014): 15-33 (available on-line)</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 07:47:10 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601512</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T07:47:10Z</dc:date> </item> </channel> </rss> 