Warner Quote discussion

"No one can measure anyone else's practice. Well, they can try if they want, but that's a stupid waste of time and energy. Anyone who tells you your practice is better or worse that anyone else's has no idea what they are talking about. Anyone who tells you you've achieved something or solved something or failed to achieve or solve something is just messing with your head. There is no reason to listen to that bullshit." -p. 31 Letters to a dead friend by Brad Warner.

That's a good pithy statement and a good self confidence statement. But I think we can survey a practice and make comments, if someone asks for advice or wants to intensify or improve their practice.

Of course everyone has a kind of private battle that we don't know about and anyone trying to shame someone about their practice has perhaps a dubious motive, unless the criticism makes you exert yourself more or in a better or focused way.

I feel raw time and consistency is important. Whether you're meditating or chanting a puja, raw time in is a good measure. What is your average daily practice? Also level of effort. If you really bust your butt during meditation, that's presumably better than just sitting there and day dreaming. Maybe just sitting there and daydreaming isn't bad for you and what you might need at that moment. But in general time and effort are seen as promising markers for a practice. I certainly feel less well when I skip meditating for weeks on end. I dislike that.

I think the stillness in sitting is a good thing. I wiggle and move a lot and when I meditate a lot I do that less. Some people have really good posture.

Effort in being ethical and thinking about others is important.

Doing things to help others, even if it's off kilter or askew, is generally a good thing. Failed efforts are at least efforts to get outside yourself and think of others, which is a good thing.

Building sangha is considered almost a top activity. I see people who found sanghas like Sangharakshita, Hannah and Chogyam Trungpa as people who have done the greatest work, even if their efforts were undercut by their misconduct, which is an even more egregious wrong when it comes to undercutting a sangha (not aware of any misconduct with Hannah). I recently learned about some disturbances in the Dharma Ocean sangha, and Shambhala has been rocked lately. Seems like a lot of sanghas have been rocked in America. I've read Shoes Outside The Door. It takes charism to imagine you can influence people to practice, but those founding qualities often are not sustainable. Whatever some founders have done, founding is pretty awesome.

The lack of sangha building is perhaps a knock against someone like Stephen Batchelor, though I love all but his latest books (see this review by Dhivan). Robert Thurman has taught students and participated in Tibet House, but I'm not aware of him taking the responsibility of cultivating a sangha. Like Batchelor, he's a kind of star Buddhist who donates his time and energy, which is great. Taking the responsibility of leading a sangha is no small activity, not easy, and takes great depth and insight and a kind of constancy. I think both those guys are spectacular and I'm not trying to run them down, I just notice that they dip in and out, they are not a constant presence. They lead fairly normal lives, and nobody can say someone has to donate all their time to the cause.

I'm not up to date and fully informed to make judgements. I think in the end, making judgements based on limited information is of limited value. In that sense, I really like Warner's quote. We really don't know enough except about ourselves.

Knowledge and depth in reading, studying, talking about the Dharma is also important. You can be an academic who doesn't meditate, and that wouldn't be as impressive to me as someone who meditates a lot every day, but knowledge of the Dharma can be important. People who use the Dharma in their practice and not just as a parlor game--that is the top for me.

Finally, there are peak experiences. Talking with others, there are experiences that seem relevant towards appreciating someone's practice. I don't know much personally about the various measurements of the Dhyanas or in David Smith's A Record of Awakening bhumis. I can't claim to understand Ingram's book, I need to read it again.

I like the idea of open source Buddhism and really talking about people's experience. I cherish time talking about other's meditative experience within the intimacy of friendship.

There is also a culture of not bragging, perhaps that is good because it helps some people not to feel inferior about not having certain experiences. That might be why some teachers are not as popular as they could be. I perhaps have kept to myself too much, so I try and openly talk about experiences, because I want to honor them, remind myself of them.

So while I agree you shouldn't really criticize other's efforts in the spiritual world, I do think we can appreciate and work to invest our energy wisely on the spiritual path, and there are some ways of appreciating, identifying what to aim for, for myself. Appreciation does imply that others are less than, sorry. I don't think we are better off by saying there are no measuring sticks. But as a statement of self confidence, and skepticism, I like Warner's statement. And I'd question anyone's motives for putting down another person. I'm really just trying to clarify what I'm aiming at.

Like a lot of posts, I start out with one idea, and then when I explore, I find that I actually appreciate the perspective. I'm glad I examined this quote. While you can critically evaluate your own practice, out of a desire to deepen and intensify, commenting on others practices isn't really useful.