Finally, the compilation of Daniel's posts is ready!

https://danielpostscompilation.blogspot.com
 
It is a collection of texts that spans through 13 years of DharmaOverground's existence, where Daniel comments on a wide variety of topics. The over 350 entries cover points of meditation practice, clarifications on conceptual definitions, discussions on maps and traditions, and on the evolution of an online community. The compilation is also a good companion to MCTB2, not only because it expands on much of the topics covered there, but also adds other topics related to Daniel's practices after writing the book. In addition, through the links to the DhO threads, the participation of different members of the community can be appreciated.

This compilation was a team effort, in which Niels Lyngsø and Tim Farrington actively participated in reviewing the texts, formatting the sections, clarifying comments to the entries, detecting texts with some degree of controversy, and correcting typos. Additionally, Michael contributed with nearly the entire list of suttas and book recommendations captured from MCTB2.

Daniel was aware of the evolution of this work, wrote the introduction to the compilation and gave us the ok to present this work to the community.

We are very happy about how this compilation turned out. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. 

Thank you Pepe, for this beautiful labor of love! And to Niels for a truly extraordinary amount of great proofreading in a second language. This is a remarkable treasure trove of practice, and lore, and the complex play of elements that makes DhO unique. It is a ton of fun, too. And going back to the original threads for the context is another whole level of delight. Like Pepe's now-classic shargrol compilation, this will be a go-to resource from the get go.

Daniel's introduction strikes just the right note:

For over 13 years, the Dharma Overground community has been a remarkable support for so many, including myself, on this strange, amazing, and sometimes profoundly challenging path. I hope that these posts reflect something useful and skillful, that you appreciate the context of the ever-changing and clearly somewhat bizarre social context in which they occurred, and that they all be taken with a grain of salt and a sense of humor. If you find them helpful, great! If not, no worries, as there is lots of great practice advice out there that hopefully will work for you and your needs and aesthetics. Hold all teachings lightly. Keep your wits about you. Be a light unto yourself. Keep your immediate experience as the first and last basis of the path. Practice well. Enjoy! 

♥

Very cool! I look forward to reading this!!

I really like the format you're using, Pepe, and like the detailed menu of topics even more. Thanks for doing all the hard work!

It's great that the work of preserving and organizing the history of the DhO is being done. Congratulations to all of the contributors to this effort. I hope I will be forgiven for borrowing Tim Farrington's words but I can't find a better way of expressing my feelings, 
"I think that there is a lineage of sorts here on DhO, from one angle: the basic path and vocabulary is rooted in the re-vivified and revised and re-interpreted Theravadan vocabulary of Daniel's MCTB and his myriad exegeses and dharma talks elsewhere. This is the initial ballpark of language that drew us here, and the rough linguistic "gold standard" for discourse. The vast diversity of views and vocabularies that DhO can tolerate without dissolving into complete chaos is pretty impressive, and speaks well for the viability of the primary lineage, as I see it. But we all have a sense of what we're talking about here, we each have a unique set of eyes seeing what they see and ears hearing what they hear, and we recognize kinship in experiences across languages a ,lot, however approximately." 
An inclusive lineage indeed!  As a newcomer, I have to testify to the power of opening to the myriad views, my practice has been greatly expanded.  Honor to Supreme Agraga Daniel !

Having gone through the entire thing thoroughly (some 500+ pages, I would guess), I can report that even for those of us who know MCTB well, there is plenty of additional but related material. If you are interested in the history of the DhO, there is also a lot of stuff from and about the strange old days. And if you have been listening to some of the many podcasts Daniel has been doing the last year or so, you will find some fair amount of points, wordings and anecdotes from these in written form here.

A huge thanks to Pepe for the gigantic amount of work he put into this.

​​​​​​​!!!

What a gift! Plan to read

This is great! Thank you Pepe, Niels, and Tim (and Daniel)!

I corrected over 10 jump-links that weren't working. Really don't know why they stop working. I'm not an IT guy, I just guess that some automatic actualization of the software does this, as this is a static single web-page. Well, all jump-links are working now. If you spot one not working, please let me know here. 

So far, there are about 120 users of the compilation per day, a good number despite the relatively cold reception it has had in DhO, Reddit and AtR, the three dharma forums I know. In Political Science that is call "silent voters", fearful supporters that don't openly express their core preferences. Are we moving back to Dharma Underground times?   

This is all such good stuff. Thank you so much for putting this together. I've spent the better part of this afternoon skimming through and just reading what seemed interesting, which was MOST of it. Going to go back at some point and read thoroughly. I wish I could take all of this knowledge and inject it directly into some heads!

Hey, so thankful for Pepe and the team to have created this! May it help many and annoy few. ;)

Best wishes!

​​​​​​​Daniel

Thank you Pepe and of course Daniel for your many contributions!

Your welcome!

I recently added "This is it" to the compilation as it sparked the conversation here. Hope there's more to come.

​​​​​​​Hey DhOers, please share the compilation in the other online groups you participate. MCTB2 is a huge book and many of the critics that are heard come from not having read it thoroughly, so just pointing-out a simple link to one of the 350+ entries in Daniel's posts compilation can mend the misperceptions. 

Thankyou for bumping this! It was published in the midst of my depression so I missed it. What a treasure! I so look forward to reading it. Thankyou for the great work, all of you!