{"id":3118,"date":"2015-10-29T09:35:08","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T15:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/?p=3118"},"modified":"2015-10-29T09:35:08","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T15:35:08","slug":"shaking-up-the-buddhadharma-with-online-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2015\/10\/shaking-up-the-buddhadharma-with-online-practice.html","title":{"rendered":"Shaking Up the Buddhadharma With Online Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"hangout_snapshot_2\"<\/a>Quick question: what sparked the compassion revolution in Buddhism<\/a> that we now call the Great Vehicle (aka, Mahayana)?<\/p>\n

One answer: Writing.<\/p>\n

Yup. A new theory has it that the proliferation of the ability to read and write that took place a bit more than 2,000 years ago changed the Buddha Way by inviting a level of intersubjective reflection that was\u00a0previously not as readily\u00a0available.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0Alan Cole puts it in \u201cThe Diamond Sutra as Sublime Object:\u00a0Negation, Narration, and Happy Endings,\u201d<\/a> \u201c\u2026Mahayana Buddhism and the discovery of writing likely have much to do with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s a factor I hadn\u2019t considered before.<\/p>\n

Scroll ahead a couple thousand years and POW! \u2013 the internet. What impacts will this have on dharma<\/a> teaching and practice? What creative, new formulations might emerge that will shake up the buddhadharma and fit with the way-seeking heart of our time?\u00a0How can this new level of intersubjective reflection be directed toward wisdom and compassion?<\/p>\n

Although that\u2019s several more quick questions, the answers are not so quick and are still mostly unformed and unknown. I suggest, though, that we may be on the cusp of a sea-change in dharma practice similar to the blooming of the Mahayana. Below I\u2019ll outline a bit or our experiment, playing at the entranceway, through\u00a0Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some of the more pedestrian changes are already just a matter of how people do things in the contemporary world. Nowadays \u2013 and if you\u2019re reading this you already know \u2013 to find a place to practice, folks just search online.\u00a0To learn about practice, we take to the internet where we find millions of offerings (text, audio, video) \u2013 quite a dramatic change from the late \u201970\u2019s when I became interested in dharma practice and could find zero books in the local bookstore and about six dharma books at the University of Minnesota. When I was ready to look for a teacher and community, I used the yellow pages. Yellow pages, dharma directories, and printed newsletters are now rare artifacts of an earlier time.<\/p>\n

But how does the internet impact people who actually want to engage in the practice?<\/p>\n

To date, online training programs are uncommon and most online classes try to recreate what works for in-person courses \u2013 they\u2019re structured for a specific time duration with one-way presentations (videos) and a few conference calls for students to connect with the teachers and each other. For example, as I write, this offer arrived in my email:<\/p>\n

\u201cWatch Free\u00a0as Over 30 Teachers of Mindfulness and Yoga Share Wisdom and Practical Teachings for Our Everyday Lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Great stuff, I\u2019m sure, and \u2026 generally unidirectional (rather than interactive) and passive. Except for how it\u2019s delivered, so last century! Also, online offerings tend to be framed as the second-rate, country cousins of in-person dharma work \u2013 \u201cif you can\u2019t show up and do the real work, then there\u2019s this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m just a poor white guy raised up in the swamps of northern Minnesota, but I\u2019ve been wondering if there is something about this technology that allows for new opportunities in how we do this work (and who with) that will lead to a new turning of the buddhadharma. How might that unfold?<\/p>\n

I get an inkling that\u2019ll be from using the new mix of technologies as fully as we can. In my view, the most pivotal capacity that the internet allows is for near instantaneous connection\u00a0between teachers and students and between students and students,\u00a0across space via text and\/or audio\/visual means. The photo above, for instance, is a screenshot from a recent practice meeting with a long-time student who lives 1,500 miles away. Her four-month old baby joined us for the session.<\/p>\n

Although this kind of practice meeting was rare just a short time ago, now many (perhaps most) dharma teachers meet with people through Skype, FaceTime, or Google Hangouts. Meeting with babies, though, always seems new.<\/p>\n

On Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training<\/a>, we\u2019ve played with the internet\u2019s capacity for connection and rather than producing cat (or even \u201cdoes a dog have buddha nature?\u201d) videos, we\u2019ve focused on enhancing\u00a0interaction, transparency, and accountability within a practice group of people devoted to zazen and working within a curriculum. Our courses are designed to be self-paced with plenty of active learning through reflections and application. The course on Dogen\u2019s \u201cThe Bodhisattva\u2019s Four Methods of Guidance,\u201d for example, begins with a conversation between a practitioner and her\/his near-and-dear one. The practitioner inquires about how\u00a0the near-and-dear one\u00a0sees the practitioner in terms of giving, kind speech, and beneficial action.<\/p>\n

During our twice annual twelve-week practice periods, practitioners intensify their home-practices, working their zazen, study, and engagement edges. One tool that we use for this is the practice planner. Each week, practitioners develop a practice plan for zazen, study, and engagement that fits their particular circumstances and then share it with all the practitioners in the practice period. Small groups of five to seven practitioners follow each other\u2019s practice life, commenting through our Moodle forum.<\/p>\n

In the current practice period, one group, composed mostly of millennials, is experimenting with WhatsApp (a\u00a0cross-platform mobile messaging app) to remove barriers from their conversations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This kind of frequency of contact about what is actually happening in the work, allows for\u00a0an\u00a0openness of heart between practitioners that I\u2019ve seldom seen even in in-person practice periods. The format itself contributes to this \u2013 our comfort level is often greater when writing than when talking face-to-face. Each practitioner also has more time to consider and share what they\u2019re moved to share than in an in-person small-group session, for example, where there might be twenty-minutes for a half-dozen practitioners to express themselves.<\/p>\n

From this kind of authentic sharing, we understand that our issues are shared and that lightens our load. We see that we can let down our Zen face, and connect with others as we are. We are inspired by the obstacles that our fellow practitioners face and how they live through them. We develop a consistency and depth with practice in the world that compares favorably to that developed in any in-person community. And we witness each other waking up.<\/p>\n

The student-to-student work complements regular zazen, teacher-student practice meetings, dharma study, and bringing the practice to life in the tangle of the world.\u00a0So it\u2019s really the same old dharma (zazen, study, engagement), rebooted and refreshed with modern technology.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are also limitations. This way of training takes a lot of teacher time so the group size has natural limits. For students, some internet fluency, or interest in developing such, is essential. In addition, it is helpful for a practitioner to have done some in-person work, because the body aspect of practice is difficult to learn through online work alone. And communication online doesn\u2019t satisfy everyone all the time.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in giving it a whirl, we\u2019re gathering a new small group for our \u201cGuidelines for Studying the Way,\u201d introductory course.\u00a0We have a handful of openings.\u00a0Click here<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quick question: what sparked the compassion revolution in Buddhism that we now call the Great Vehicle (aka, Mahayana)? One answer: Writing. Yup. A new theory has it that the proliferation of the ability to read and write that took place a bit more than 2,000 years ago changed the Buddha Way by inviting a level […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89,87,26,88],"class_list":["post-3118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-buddhism","tag-online-dharma-practice","tag-soto-zen","tag-vine-of-obstacles-online-support-for-zen-training"],"yoast_head":"\nShaking Up the Buddhadharma With Online Practice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Quick question: what sparked the compassion revolution in Buddhism that we now call the Great Vehicle (aka, Mahayana)? 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