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Assessing Each Other's Practice

As this is explicitly a map and attainment oriented site, it is inevitable that people will be evaluating each other’s posts and practice and making judgements and comparisons to their own practive. This is normal and often healthy, but there is a flip side to this that can get ugly, and I really mean ugly.

I have been on both sides of these issues, meaning that I have spent a lot of time being evaluated and also evaluating for about 14 years now, and can say that I have seen some of the worst and best of what can arise from this. Everything is all fine and nice when everyone agrees, but there not infrequently arises a situation in which one or both people think that the other has misdiagnosed themselves, usually thinking that the other hasn’t yet attained to what they claim to have, and then the compassionate battle begins, either subtly or overtly, to convince the poor misguided delusional sap that they are not at the level they think they are and they should acknowledge the superiority of the loving attacker and get their practice back on track.


While those are not particularly nice terms to use, in reality that is often how it is, even if everyone is pretending otherwise and putting on their nicest and most whitewashed mask of gentle condescension. I am not saying there isn’t sometimes some profound and real compassion behind these situations, but the difficulties are legion in the slippery world of evaluating something that is sometimes difficult to measure and regarding a topic that is so close to peoples’ hearts and identities in the ultimate and relative senses and on both sides of the conflict.

Once a view is locked in that someone is not at the level they think they are, it is very easy to take issue with every term and concept that they use and perceive them through that filter, such that no wisdom coming from their keyboard or mouths appears to be anything other than their rationalizing of their own ignorance with misapplied theory and lingo. Paradoxically, there can arise a situation in which the person being judged has risen far enough above the level of understanding of the person judging them that the judger can no longer fully understand anything the person who is being judged is saying, resulting in even worse miscommunication, as to the judger it looks like even more delusional grandiosity on the part of the judged.

On the other hand, sometimes one is exactly correct in believing that the delusional intellectual is in fact just that: someone who has managed to rationalize themselves into the golden cage of a theoretician who has come to falsely believe they are an advanced practitioner. Who would be so callous and aloof as to not reach out to them with all the tools at one’s disposal to help them realize their slippery plight when clearly their stated aim is some higher level of understanding?

These things can get even worse when there are roll reversals, meaning that students outpace their teachers or friends outpace friends. Precocious practitioners tend to ruffle the feathers of the old guard. Related to this is the situation when both parties do have some wisdom and attainments but both begin to believe the other is actually deluded or not at a level that is as high as they are, as can happen particularly in the middle paths. Further complicating this is the fact that the maps are just that: broad strokes, crude reductionistic sketches of a very complex process, and while there are some good sign-posts along the way, a lot of the middle territory is pretty grey. Worse, not everyone has come up in the dharma with the same sets of criteria for various levels or even agrees what those levels are, and standards vary tremendously. Final and firm decisions are often hard to arrive at, even when we judge our own practice, and this is worth remembering. I personally have been wrong about various aspects of my own practice more times than I could possibly count.

Things often are not so black and white as everyone involved would make them out to be, situations in which two people may have good wisdom, just not necessarily quite as much as they think they do. It is these sorts of situations that really lead to some of the ugliest pissing matches, test even the strongest friendships, and strain communities. When titans clash, the shock waves can ripple out far and wide.

I know of a few of these situations going on now, some overtly, some behind the scenes, and some skittering between strained but respectful thread exchanges and really blatant, “You have no idea what you are talking about”-style posts.
In the spirit of the Dharma Overground, I thought it would be worth having a place where people could just go ahead and fight it out so as to get it done and over with when possible, though I realize from my own experience that these things can go on for years without easy or comfortable resolution.

It is also possible that everyone will suddenly become polite or go undercover when these things are made so overt as I have done here, and thus they will step away from the ring for some period of time or go on being somewhat subtle about things.
Specifically, there is the Curious Case of Trent (Yabaxoule), a young IT professional who in less than a year and without retreats claims to be at least a anagami if not an arahat, which has caused what seems to be reasonable concern from a substantial group of seasoned practitioners here, as is only natural. If he has deluded himself, then it makes sense to try to help him figure out how he has gone wrong. If he has actually done anything like what he claims, then it makes sense to try to figure out how he did it so that others can also, as that rapidity of progress would be quite remarkable on retreat, much less in daily life with a job and relationship. Both are worthy goals. He has given me permission to use his name and case here, which is kind and brave.

I thought it would be worth exploring this curious case head-on, and perhaps that will help bring out in the open the dark but inevitable side of map-based and goal-oriented practice among serious practitioners, and perhaps some of the other more subtle battles will come more out in the open as a result.

While taking these issues head on is a very risky thing to do, I think that keeping them more covert is worse. True, watching these battles can cause a lack of faith on the part of those who are not as advanced, as they watch theoretically advanced practitioners seem to behave like bickering children at worse and often seem like patronizing and arrogant schoolmarms at best, but such is the nature of the beast, and those who aren’t willing to face the fact that this is how things sometimes go should stay out the kitchen.
While I have painted these debates in pretty scathing terms, as they often end up that way, I believe that there ways that this can happen that are respectful, skillful, open-minded, helpful and practical, and I call on those here to do their best to dive into the dark waters of comparison and judgement with all the bravery and talent that got them where they are today and come up with something better than what typically happens in the rest of the world when these issues arise. As this is the Dharma Overground, and The Dharma Overground so far shines like the Sun most of the time, I believe my vision of how good things can be is not only possible but probable.

Let the games begin!
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