Well, if you proclaim as a monk, the society expects you to behave like a monk.
Perhaps, but when you’re in a leadership role people tend to notice more when you don’t “walk the walk”.
People will focus on your defilements first and then, if at all, theirs. If you set yourself up to meet all their expectation only one thing will happen- failure. Even the Buddha is frowned upon for (please forgive me) for leaving his wife, even now. There’s no way anyone can be a perfect leader, though they all wish they may be following the perfect leader and project those expectation on the person initiating, organizing, knowing the most dhamma, practiced most or talking the most forcefully. I used to be conscious of my behaviour a lot. After 18 years of leading groups it has got a lot better. I don’t try to strike the perfect lotus position or pretend I’m not who I am in my private life. They have me for better or for worse… warts and all. We may not be able to alter others behaviours towards the leader, but we can not wear the crown (of thorns) that is handed to us when leading groups- but I appreciate it is very hard to stop thinking oneself is special or one’s view should be treated with more respect. Conceit slips in easily and it is removed at very late stages- when becoming an arahanth, and therefore requires heightened development of the spiritual faculties. Having a sense of humor and taking oneself lightly is quite helpful. Rotating leadership, presenter, organizer role and even venue can help to structurally remove the pressure build up on one individual.
On the flip side becoming dependent on one individual means when that person cannot attend the whole group falls flat. When their defilements show up the premise of the group goes bust. The leader should be there to shine the spotlight on the dhamma, and not themselves. The Buddha left the leadership of the dispensation to the dhamma-vinaya and not one individual. Also the leader gets to learn and develop if they learn to take a step back as well- especially about controlling conceit.
I believe there are kammic consequences of setting oneself up as a Dhamma teacher. Corruptions can creep into ones behaviour and may lead to altering the dhamma to make it more saleable or to develop cravings for the material benefits of becoming a teacher. I think these are quite serious issues and not to be taken lightly. Also it is important to consider whether teaching benefits people or not, whether it benefits oneself (spiritually) or not and whether one is chasing after students who dont necessarily want to be taught by you (there is a sutta about this) and whether it might be more beneficial to become someone else’s student, rather than someone else’s teacher.
with metta
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This is an idea I was kicking around. What if there was a live skype, or text typing chatroom type of daily meditation group cyber meetup, for people from different international time zones and geographic locations.
So obviously people wouldn’t be online live and doing a sit together because of the different time zones, but the idea is that by checking into the group ,you’re making a firm commitment to do a formal sit sometime within the day. The sit can be 5 minutes, 30 min, 3 hours, whatever your interest level is. In fact, better not to think of it as a sit, but a formal meditation “session” that can include any combination of sitting, walking, standing , lying down, in noble silence (2nd jhana, or your best approximation of it).
The purpose of the meetup would be to discuss, solicit advice and meditation tips and meditation problems. People can hang out at the meetup as long as they want to discuss their meditation related issues, other dhamma topics they can move to a different chat room.
The idea behind this would be there are some experienced EBT meditation practitioners around to help out, available once a day.
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This sounds good @frankk. I wonder if DD has the ability to provide support for this service. I’m mostly free Friday afternoon, GMT.
With metta
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Barre Cenere is conducting this type of activities but they are not free.
https://www.bcbsdharma.org/online-programs/entering-the-path/
The instruction by Buddha on meditation is to go to an empty place.
Perhaps the objective of virtual meditation group should be a guided meditation for beginners.
Good points, and based on personal experience I agree with much of what you have said. We now take turns to present, and we meet at different peoples’ houses, also the organisational side is much more collaborative. Initially I was trying to do everything myself, and in hindsight was probably being a bit of a control freak. It’s been a steep learning curve with some mistakes along the way, but on balance I think it has been worthwhile. I live in an area which has been neglected by the main UK Buddhist groups, so it is good to have a local sangha and point of contact. Several of us maintain contact with other Buddhist groups, which also helps.
True. I have found however, after some time it became a bit difficult for newcomers to join. It became a bit self sufficient. We are based around Sutton/Surrey/Bromley area put some people come from near Amawawati as well. We are happy to have new people join us however!
with metta
Yes, it can be tricky with an established group. It’s not easy to get the balance right sometimes!
This new year 2018 I am planning to have a sutta reading class.
I am going to use @frankk audtip for the listening.
http://audtip.dx.am/tipitaka/mn/mn-eng.html
Then I use the words from relevant translation. If we are listening to MN1 I will use the translation from the relevant source.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.001.than.html
Piya Tan:
http://dharmafarer.org/wordpress/sutta-titles-2/majjhima-nikaya
Sutta Central: