Comments on “The Aesthetic of Meditation is Broken”
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Well, maybe not quite all of them! But, yes, as I’ve said elsewhere, Aro is mostly not reaching under-45s (except in Finland—an interesting special case). My guess is it will vanish with the death of its current generation of teachers. But a new generation of Lamas has just been promoted, and some of them seem to share some of my views on this.
There’s lots of non-Aro younger teachers who I think are doing most things right; but none I can recommend unreservedly.
Brad Warner talks plain post-1980 English, and has serious stuff to say. His visual design and “delivery mechanism” need work.
Ethan Nichtern’s Interdependence Project is great on hip branding and fresh delivery, but the actual content seems Boomerish to me.
The Buddhist Geeks site has innovative delivery (podcast interviews with many slightly-off-center teachers), but some worrying tendency towards fashionable monism.
Daniel Ingram is interesting and gets a lot of buzz and I like some things about his presentation. I can’t make sense of his main points, though.
Who else should be included in this list?
Oh, yes. Check out Hokai Sobol.
“Well, maybe not quite all of them! But, yes, as I’ve said elsewhere, Aro is mostly not reaching under-45s (except in Finland—an interesting special case). My guess is it will vanish with the death of its current generation of teachers. But a new generation of Lamas has just been promoted, and some of them seem to share some of my views on this.”
Hmm… I try to comment as a 27-ear-old member of the Finnish sangha. I am hardly a member of the boomer generation. When it comes to books, I do spot certain style that speaks maybe more to boomers. However, I have not have that problem with personal communication with my lama. On the other hand, maybe Lama Rig’dzin has a very different style of expression than the lineage holders. His sangha is relatively young.
If I would become an authorized teacher, I wonder what my style of teaching would be. I have just my blog, but that does not really tell anything, because it is not about teaching really. Regardless, I have been writing in the members’ magazine of the Finnish Pagan Network (www.pakanaverkko.fi) a series of articles where I try to communicate some basic ideas of Dzogchen to pagans. I call this series “Dzogchen for Chaos Magicians”. Unfortunately it is written in Finnish and there are no translations (at least yet).
Great new photo, btw.
Many of your links lead to your Aro site. But it is ironic since Aro is packed full of all the things you criticize here. I agree with the criticisms. Keep us posted if you find sites or teachers that are paying attention to these points ! Thanx.