For myself, I find the idea difficult because, as a practitioner and teacher, I have no clue how to assess what someone’s actual practice is from an electronic communication. I get requests fairly frequently for advice on meditation via email and so on, and I make it a policy to politely decline.
When I speak to someone about meditation, I can at least make a start to understand who they are, get a sense for their background, their emotional state, their bearing, and all the little things that get lost on the web. That doesn’t mean you’ll definitely get it right—the suttas remind us that even Sāriputta sometimes gives bad meditation advice—but it means you have a chance.
The reason I think discussion of texts can be useful on the web is precisely because it is a lesser form of communication. It is about something thinner, less meaningful, less important, and more transparent. We might all disagree about the interpretation of a text, but we can at least look at the same text and know what it is we’re disagreeing about. Even then, you may have noticed that I tend to avoid discussions on profound or difficult matters, and mostly content myself with clarifying minor details. Again, this is not because I am not interested in the profound things, but because I think an internet forum is not likely to be a useful place to decide such things.
When someone says, “I had a peaceful meditation”, I have literally no idea what they’re talking about. If someone says “I have jhana”, I am 90% sure they’re probably overestimating themselves. But I still know nothing of what their meditation is really like.
Meditation is so subtle, it gets into all kinds of things regarding one’s background, state of spiritual development, opportunities, relationships, psychological problems, and all that. And it is incredibly fragile. As a teacher, I couldn’t really care less about what state of meditation a person has, or what they think they have. All I care about is that they keep practicing and getting better. So most of the job is listening, and saying, “Great, keep going!”
But sometimes someone really is going off the rails. What do you do? Correcting their misunderstanding might help with that, or it might just ruin their confidence. And then—with apologies to everyone here—you so often get people rushing in to offer their advice, when they have no idea or experience. Mature practitioners will tend to be much more cautious and reticent with such things, because we know how hard it is. And meanwhile, half a dozen enthusiastic new practitioners have rushed in to lay down how it really is.
I understand why people are interested in this, and i know that it is important to talk about your practice. But if anyone asked me about this, I would strongly encourage them to join a local meditation group, or even form one, where you can talk with real people, not with The Cyber. I know not everyone can do this, but still.
Anyway, not saying it can’t happen, just explaining my reservations.