Fellow members,

The compilation is now completed. It ended up being twice the original size. In case you entered before, there are signs in each entry ('new') with two colors, as the compilation was done in three rounds, so you can easily check which entries you haven't read yet.  

Shargrol kindly added an introduction to the blog plus a very interesting list of books for further reading. So check it out!

Here's the link to the blog, in case you miss it: A compilation of Shargrol's posts at DharmaOveground 

Hope you enjoy!

Great work!

I'm really happy to see my friend get his due. About time!

Thanks much to both Shargrol and Pepe, I've found this compilation both interesting and useful in my practice.

I do have a request @Pepe - is there any way to make the root domain have some way of navigating to the content? At the moment it's empty, so a link to the blog page is required, since there's no obvious way to navigate to the content from the raw URL:  https://shargrolpostscompilation.blogspot.com

Let me allow myself to add to the chorus of voices of thanks for doing such a valuable thing! I have refered to shargol's posts on noting already

Thanks Todust. I got absolutely no technical skills, so I don't know how to do that from where it is now. I made the blog in just one (extremely long) page (I guess that subdomains would be created if there were a page for each section) in order to facilitate de use of  "control + F" to search for a specific subject. Plus, below the Introduction you got the Table of Contents with jumps links to the entries. Isn't that enough to locate the texts? 

I think the layout is perfectly fine, no need to change anything there. What I'm referring to is if you type in or click on the main URL of the blog (without the /p/blog-page.html part):

https://shargrolpostscompilation.blogspot.com

That's the "home page" of the blog, and it says "no content here". I can't find a way to even click around and get to https://shargrolpostscompilation.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html with all the content.

Apparently the way to fix that on Blogger is to set up a redirect. This article (assuming it's up to date) explains how in step #2: https://helplogger.blogspot.com/2016/10/how-to-create-static-home-page-in-blogger.html

So in Blogger Settings you would create a custom redirect that redirects from 
to   

This shouldn't change anything about the existing page or content. It would just make is so if somebody visits the blog home page they are automatically taken to the content page with all the juicy parts. It's not critical since people can still find their way there, it's just good search engine / webpage hygiene that makes it easier for people to arrive at the intended destination. (Happy to help via direct message if you wish, but feel free to ignore this all as pedantry if it's all a bit much.)

Either way I'm very glad this compilation exists as it's already helped me discover a lot of useful material I otherwise wouldn't have

Great! Done the correction, thanks! That thing bugged me, but I didn't know how to correct it. Yep, Shargrol has some posts in reddit/streamentry so if people google him, it would be nice that the links actually work  . Thanks again! 

There where 57 jump-links that for whatever reason weren't working anymore. The only reason I can think of is when I naively clicked "yes" to a blogger software actualization ... if it's working, don't fixed it ... Well I could correct 55 of them. For the other two, I exhausted all options I know and finally gave up:

- Map Obsession and Noting Thoughts
​​​​​​​- Equanimity isn't just the clear, calm, open 'state'

Hope you keep on enjoying Shargrol's post compilation.

​​​​​​​Metta!

Thanks again Pepe.  Very cool, I appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you Pepe, and thank you Shargrol, you are both awesome.

Btw, how about making a book, guys ? 

I feel that having an "object" (wink wink) one can hold in their hands, consult outside of the screen and the internet, is a pretty cool/important thing, and I feel like there is enough material there that is new enough that a lot of people would benefit from having it in a nicely edited form. I know I would like that. 

Perhaps there could be a kind of fundraiser to cover the publishing costs, or what...

Just an idea...

Titled "Non-heroic Gentle Way"!? ;)

The compilation originally came about as a personal wish for seeing Shargrol writing a book. He surely has this project in mind, and will eventually write it in the future. Meanwhile, we can enjoy this collection of texts.

I imagine that if someone had to face the decision to write a book on these spiritual matters, he/she would wonder what the purpose of that effort is, especially when there are an infinite number of books on the subject. Vanity? Generosity? Self-promotion? A legacy to posterity? And besides this uncomfortable personal debate, he/she should also face the consequences of planting the flag in the Dharma arena: the loss of anonymity and dealing with personal criticism and boot-lickers. Despite all this, if I put myself in the shoes of someone with the road already traveled, I believe that the ethic of responsibility would prevail. I identify with Lao Tzu, who wrote the Tao Te Ching in his last stop before he went into exile.

I believe that a book penned by Shargrol would make an important contribution to the community, re-emphasizing the role of psychological sanity within a meditation practice. The Pragmatic Dharma community initially became known for prioritizing the search for results, solutions, and moving away from religious dogmatism and the new-age bubble. But in its early years it was comprised by people who already had many years of practice and who had implicitly incorporated the healthier values of those schools. Recovering the role of psychological sanity is very necessary for those of us who later joined this community, to round off a comprehensive practice. 

Damn! This is good stuff. Like, really, really good stuff!

Hello pepe ! Thanks for compiling Shargrol's helpful guidance. But one thing that  I think needs to be changed is the link  under :Variety of Maps: the priests argue, but the monks agree . There is a link for Hokai's website but it seems that the site has expired and now it redirects you to a porn site (Which is very surprising if I may say so, if youre expecting an essay instead of porn  )  The link is for  Ten levels of Mind . Hope it can be removed or changed . Thanks !

Yeah the previous address for Hokai's website has expired.
The new one is:
https://hokai.eu/

Thanks! I found the new link : https://hokai.eu/ten-levels-of-mind/. . Hopefully it can be corrected soon  

Wow! Thanks Josef! I changed the link 

Good evening,

I've read Pepe's wonderful compilation several times and found it superbly beneficial in my practice. Does anyone know if there is a way to get in contact with Shargrol? I have so many questions I'd love to ask!

Thanks!

Bananas Bananas asks:
​​​​​​​

​​​​​​​Shargrol will be along shortly, I'm sure.

BB, feel free to start a new thread with your questions!

Ha! I actually toyed with this idea to start a thread "Ask shargrol" because our PM system is not working to send you dirrect message. And here BB has the change to start one (as I got my questions answered already ... for now)

Just an update of the new entries added to the compilation:

- Catharsis is rarely the answer
- Mental health is very important 
- "Four Gears" of practice in Ken McLeod's Wake Up to Your Life
- Finding a supporting practice framework for EQ
- Enjoy the simplicity of EQ. Don't assume SE too soon. Keep practicing, don't second-guess. Straight ahead! 
- Include and Relax
- Two major ways of defining Stream Entry
- Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta 
- Getting used to non-agency 
- Oh Shit, there will never be a future self 

Enjoy!

Pepe, I don't feel totally comfortable with calling this "Ken McLeod's F G A" since he never uses that expression or talks about the practices in that way.

Could it be changed to "Four Gears" of practice in Ken McLeod's Wake Up to Your Life?

Could a short note be added at the beginning, too?  (Note: the idea of four gears in this section is a playful riff on Kenneth Folk's "three gears" using practices from KMcL's WUTYL - rather than rely on this short DhO post, it's much better to read the book itself!)

Sure. Corrections made both in the compilation and above. 

Pepe, I've been feeling a lot of gratitude for your work on this... is there anything I can do for you?

Shargrol, the honour is mine. In fact, doing compilations is my daily job, so doing yours was my paid-back for all what learned and took inspiration from your posts. And luckily I did it just before software migration to Liferay 7, as nowadays the system only allow to search the newest 200 posts. Besides starting this compilation hoping you could use it as a sort of back-bone of a future book, I was expecting that the compilation would be used as a sort of middle-ground, and so kind of set some common language and (reasonable) boundaries to the conversation in DhO. That didn't happen as I hoped for, but as Chris Marti says, DhO has been online for over 12 years now, so there's some inertia that has to be accepted as it is. All in all, I'm proud that your texts have had 40,000 reads in the last couple of years. I have seen your compilation being praised even in forums where theravadins are routinely dismissed. So you should be proud of that!

The second part of this post I'll write it in my practice log, as this thread is about your compilation.

Well, for what it's worth... I have been working on a practice book and that's what has intensified my feeling of gratitude. So maybe your master plan is working. ;)

Whoa! Shargrol is writing a book! Let's gooooo

Cool! Good that you steered towards a practice book. It will surely be of help to many many people!     

Hi DhOers!

Now there's a Table of Contents right at the top of the blog as to enhance the navigation, particularly for new visitors. Also, I added these few new Shargrol's entries:

- Cultivating Spaciousness isn't typically for beginners
- The Housecleaning Phase
- Equanimity is about mastering the middle path
- Stream Entry doesn't happen by more and more clarity 

Enjoy!
​​​​​​​

Pepe, I want to thank you for doing such an excellent job on this compilation page. I stumbled upon it a month or so ago and was very impressed with the organization of the material and how easy it is to return and find things. Your page is what led me to investigate and join this forum.

Shargrol, thank you for your years of dedicated service to helping others and writing all those posts. I do not have experience with Theravada Buddhism and am not familiar with most of the language and terms, yet I found that your posts were filled with much universal wisdom applicable to my practice and life. I return to and reread the sections that have been most helpful. I follow a path that is guided from within and write spiritual articles for a lay audience. I was wondering if you would be interested in answering questions that were not specific to the Theravada meditation path that could help a wider audience of people? I am thinking along the lines of questions that would bridge and relate to people coming from a wide range of traditions and practices. I'm especially interested in the common denominators between many spiritual paths. Wishing you all the best regardless of your interest in this or not. 

Thanks Arena, happy that you like it! And welcome aboard!

> I do not have experience with Theravada Buddhism and am not familiar with most of the language and terms

While Daniel Ingram's MCTB2 is a really comprehensive catch-all text about 'pragmatic dharma' version of Theravada Buddhism,  maybe Ron Crouch's shorter description could be a nicer introduction to the topic:

- The Path
- The Physio-Cognitive Stage
- The A&P
- The Dark Night
- Equanimity
- Cessation

Hope this helps!
​​​​​​​

I keep bingeing this compilation, then forgetting about it. Then spot reading it. Then repeat.

I was kind of in a practice limbo, either chaos or not much apparently going on. And then this thread was bumped and sure enough re-reading it kind of puts it back in perspective.

I also found Kenneth Folk's description using the wayback machine... If anyone has any other summaries by other authors that would be awesome.

"The Progess of Insight by Kenneth Folk":

https://web.archive.org/web/20161225130215/http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-public/13497-the-progress-of-insight-by-kenneth-folk

Not a summary, but another interesting description of the path in Dream Walker's thread "A Framework of Awakening". Also check Daniel Ingram's comments on this model in Daniel's posts compilation. 

Thanks Pepe and finding-oneself for posting all those links. The problem that I am having is that my path has been much more simple compared to all the stages and details presented in these maps. I know a small number of other people like myself who also have had their own more simplified paths.

Shargrol wrote about a lot of things that I could relate to, especially in the section on the middle and higher paths. A number of those sections are things that I'm actively grappling with right now. He also uses language in a way that I can relate to.

I feel respect for the path and maps and practioners here, but most of it doesn't seem to match my experience. Linda just wrote something about her meditation that seemed to fit my experience exactly. So I posted more about my meditation on her blog. I am very interesed in finding the commonalities between diverse paths. And where the common ground is between my experience and the practices focused upon here. I've found a few places of common ground, perhaps more will become clear. 

I hope that you both are doing well. Wishing you all the best with your practice and life.

Hi DhOers!

It's time for the annual update of the compilation with these new entries from Shargrol:

1.   [ Centering ] Kneading the dough image
2.   [ Insight ] The human mind is usually in a "fix it" or "improve it" mode, but we learn to drop this during meditation
3.   [ Insight ] How to 'liberate' Dukkha
4.   [ Insight ] Basic Sanity is clarity of sensations, emotions, and thoughts while not 'believing' any of them.Then sensation hunting, emotional drama, and complex thought is a lot less compelling
5.   [ Toolbox ] Where I differ with approaches like TMI: the job isn't to discipline oneself and force one's way past dullness, but basically to listen and love that state to death
6.   [ Maps ] Adopting ideas of perfection as a practical goal for meditation practice is not helpful
7.   [ Stream-Entry ] Sensations are a gateway of sorts to not-self
8.   [ The Middle & Higher Paths ] Most people report a total fractal mess... and yet progression happens just as it should
9.   [ The Middle & Higher Paths ] Seeing the tautologies of samsaric worlds and having them extinguish
10. [ The Middle & Higher Paths ] Suffering, Emptiness, Liberation and Compassion

Hope you enjoy!

I appreciate you collecting these @pepe
Woulda overlooked them if you hadnt

Hey Pepe, you are awesome.
The same questions come up again and again over the years so ANY summaries are incredibly useful. Yours are WAY better than any!
Thanks and Good luck,
​​​​​​​~D

Thanks Dream Walker! 

​​​​​​​My work was just a little formating, the good content is all yours  Hope this summaries and compilations spread around and be of help as much as possible.

I would like to thank @pepe and @shargrol for this compilation. It has been very helpful for me. Thanks so much! I don't have words to describe my gratitude! 

Glad to hear it's helpful! Pepe did all the work of compiling, so great thanks to him!

Happy to know you enjoy it Andre! 

Every 6-12 months I update it, as Shargrol is a never ending source of wise material, so don't forget to come back again and again   

"Shargrol is a never ending source of wise material"

He just can't shut up  

I started a blog in Brazil translating the posts: https://shargrol-br.blogspot.com.

I know some pragmact dharma practioners and I hope will help them like me.

Shargrol, sent you a PM.