Imagine if I stated, “At the Dharma Overground, my opinion is indistinguishable from others posting on the forum, and we all come to that table of co-adventuring stripped of regency, just more good people helping each other out free of bias and any trace of hierarchy,” you rightly would scream, “Delusion! Oh, that x-Buddhist! He is so blind to his own power and the dynamics that creates! He is just another foolish leader and that is just another foolish community!”, and, in this, would perhaps be doing us a service, or at least attempting to. I don’t for a minute believe that on my own forum which, while diverse, in general does give weight to my book and other works, that I could possibly be treated equally to everyone else there. I have privilege on the DhO. I have power on the DhO, likely more power than any of the other thousands of forum members. These are simply truths.

I am in an alpha role in my community at the moment, as you are in yours. There are other alphas around the DhO, and some of us get along well, but we all know we are alphas, or at least I hope we do. Even if I didn’t write the book that draws many of the forum’s participants (though certainly not all by any means), the simple fact that I am also the administrator of the website and can ban members and remove posts imposes clear power dynamics on the DhO, and it is 100% impossible that those aware of my power won’t have what they post there and about me and my ideas skewed by that simple fact, particularly when it comes to criticism of me. This, while unfortunate in obvious ways, is just a straightforward fact of life, which is a never-ending set of uneven power dynamics. I can attempt to be aware of these dynamics and sensitive to them, but I am 100% sure that I am not going to be able to perfectly compensate for them, nor is the community, as it is my house in the end, my party, my Feast there.