{"id":260,"date":"2009-11-21T20:21:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-21T20:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2009\/11\/a-war-fought-with-hugs\/"},"modified":"2009-11-21T20:21:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-21T20:21:00","slug":"a-war-fought-with-hugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2009\/11\/a-war-fought-with-hugs.html","title":{"rendered":"A War Fought with Hugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/extremekindness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/11\/hug-o-war-hug.gif\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;float: left;cursor: pointer;width: 248px;height: 342px\" src=\"https:\/\/extremekindness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/11\/hug-o-war-hug.gif\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a>Last Sunday, in a very nice chat with Rev. Danny Fisher I heard about the Tricycle article called \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tricycle.com\/feature\/dharma-wars\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Dharma Wars.<\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n<p>Much of the article concerns a particular situation that I don\u2019t know much about. But it moves on to try to make pretty broad claims about Buddhists and the internet.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">After describing a comment section dialog over at <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/thebuddhistblog.blogspot.com\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">James Ure\u2019s<\/a> blog, the author claimed:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Twisted Branch had a point, though. In cyberspace, we can craft whatever persona we choose and call our blog whatever we want, and Buddhist bloggers often inflate their experience and understanding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The funny thing to me was that Twisted Branch apologized for his comments and everyone, to my knowledge, moved on \u2013 except for the article writer.<\/p>\n<p>In my experience, this happens from time to time. I too get frustrated by some people\u2019s claims or apparent lack of reasoning here or there. Sometimes I can say so skilfully, other times I come off sounding like a jerk. <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">In pretty much every case, we got over it and luckily our conversations end there<\/span>. Also, in my limited experience <span style=\"font-style: italic\">no one<\/span> has inflated his or her experience and\/or understanding.  Having received multiple transmissions including the awesome Dharma name: \u201cSublime Dwelling of the Source,\u201d and being omniscient, I would KNOW if they had. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>On a positive, and serious note, the article does reference many wise teachers warning of the potential pitfalls of the internet, including blogs like this one. As readers and contributors, we need to be mindful of what we are <span style=\"font-style: italic\">putting into our minds<\/span> and what is coming out. <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">It also helps to be humble, keep a sense of humor, and be charitable <\/span>(to those little people who aren\u2019t quite omniscient yet). Am I a hypocrite? Sure. Have I failed in these little bits of advice a hundred times or more? Of course. Should you do as I say and not as I do? Sounds good to me.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, the Internet, just like other media <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">such as books <\/span>(research \u201cThe Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion\u201d and you\u2019ll see how much harm a book can do)<span style=\"font-weight: bold\"> and the radio <\/span>(watch \u201cHotel Rwanda\u201d to see the horrors of radio in the wrong hands), is a mixed bag.  <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">We all have a responsibility for making it a beautiful place, for calling out the rubbish, and being called out as well. <\/span>Sure, people can <span style=\"font-style: italic\">try <\/span>to craft a fancy persona online, but the smell of shit does come through keyboards too \u2013 and who out there hasn\u2019t met someone in real life that turned out to be <span style=\"font-style: italic\">pretty darned fake<\/span>?<\/p>\n<p>So, a big [virtual] hug to all the classy folks I read (over on the right), even those I happen to disagree with from time to time \u2013 hell, especially <span style=\"font-style: italic\">them!<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7907151-2425392899117452616?l=americanbuddhist.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last Sunday, in a very nice chat with Rev. Danny Fisher I heard about the Tricycle article called \u201cDharma Wars.\u201c Much of the article concerns a particular situation that I don\u2019t know much about. But it moves on to try to make pretty broad claims about Buddhists and the internet. After describing a comment section [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A War Fought with Hugs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last Sunday, in a very nice chat with Rev. Danny Fisher I heard about the Tricycle article called &quot;Dharma Wars.&quot;Much of the article concerns a particular\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2009\/11\/a-war-fought-with-hugs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A War Fought with Hugs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last Sunday, in a very nice chat with Rev. Danny Fisher I heard about the Tricycle article called &quot;Dharma Wars.&quot;Much of the article concerns a particular\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2009\/11\/a-war-fought-with-hugs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Buddhist Perspectives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-21T20:21:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/extremekindness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/11\/hug-o-war-hug.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2009\/11\/a-war-fought-with-hugs.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2009\/11\/a-war-fought-with-hugs.html\",\"name\":\"A War Fought with Hugs\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-11-21T20:21:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-11-21T20:21:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#\/schema\/person\/abfb8f851f671638c4c7536b963f9da9\"},\"description\":\"Last Sunday, in a very nice chat with Rev. 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