What would be in the ideal dharma book?

I'm working on the outline for my book, pondering which topics to cover, and how to frame it. Suddenly, it occurs me that I have this incredible opportunity right under my nose! I could ask the forum what they would like to see in the book. In other words, if there were an ideal dharma book for you, what would be in it? (Keep in mind that this is me who is writing it. Don't ask me to write about Shamanism or a scholarly study of the Abhidhamma, because those aren't my areas of expertise.) What do you really want to know? Any thoughts on how it should be structured? This is a brainstorming session, so all ideas are welcome. Nothing will be mocked, ridiculed, or criticized. Just be free and tell me what comes into your mind. I'll put it all in the blender, shake it up, and hopefully something beautiful will result from the team effort.

Feeling inspired,

Kenneth

This will be a nuts and bolts book about "practice," and getting enlightened, right? Not a scholarly study or a flowery but vague collection of essays, correct?
One of your key original teachings is all about the "20 strata of mind."
So, the book should be structured around those, maybe a chapter for each strata.
Then, for practice books, people want to hear autobiography. For each chapter, then, begin with a vivid narrative about your life and/or meditation state, stage, or experience that relates to that strata. Sure, keep in all the details but remember to always relate what you are saying back to a real life experience that you can talk about vividly. (also use other people's anecdotes as appropriate).
Also, keep to your themes that "ordinary" people can get enlightened and that it is a natural process.
(I guess I just described a book that is JUST about first gear only, right?) Maybe it could be in three parts and the first gear part could be in the 20 sections. I don't know.

Thanks, Mike. Great stuff. This book is going to be about all three gears. I might call it "The Elephant." It's hard for me to imagine writing a book that doesn't point to the whole picture.

I think that a discussion of your experiences leading up to "the Elephant," similar to your narrative about your path in the Buddhist Geeks interview would be a great intro to the book.

I don't think you should call it "the elephant" though. that could be the subtitle or something.
Practice book titles need to really let the reader know they are getting a useful interesting book about how to awaken and "the elephant" wouldn't do that.

So happy to hear about the BOOK. Great!
About the content and the structure, personally I found useful not only the more 'structured' writings on the site (which are perfect and already written like a pro) but a lot of more detailed information about the outcome of meditation sessions in the threads, and some great sentences (as 'vipassana is jhanic attainment' - my favorite one).
My hope is to find not only your 'system' (the three gears) as a theory and a contribution to literature, but a lot of practice technicalities.
And your own process of understanding (like the jhana-nana equivalence, discovered suddenly with the answer of the Sayadaw).
The new writing about the walking meditation is another little masterpiece, because you start saying that you did not like walking meditation UNTIL... in this way you bring the reader with you (especially if he hates walking meditation - like me - as usually presented).

I guess I'm most interested in a bit of a reality check about practice and progress when it comes to lay practice. What should people really expect? What does it take? Do you personally think you could have gotten to where you are without intensive study in (Burma?), Why, why not? How would your current model have helped you at different parts of your path. How would the current you have taught the old you? Here's a somewhat radical idea: it might be good to collaborate with Daniel for part of it and compare the rows you needed to hoe. Where are the obvious landmines and not so obvious landmines? If you could do it all over again, what would you change? What's your utopia? How should this terrain be taught in U.S. society? If you were a sandwich, what kind of sandwich would you be and why? Okay, maybe not the last one. But those are the kind of questions I would enjoy reading your answers to. Hope it helps!

"If you were a sandwich, what kind of sandwich would you be and why?

"

THAT is funny. Thanks for the laugh betawave.

I am with Mike on this: soup to nuts, nuts and bolts. Details and descriptions. Yes, a bit of background narrative is nice to put things into context, but what is almost 100% missing is a highly practice-oriented manual on getting enlightened. I say almost because there is MCTB, a book that many of us here found to be groundbreaking, weaknesses and all. There is ample room for a similarly practice-level book, with your unique slant on things. But as Mike stressed, reinforce that ordinary people can get "enlightened" (and what does that mean), and that much (all?) of it is a natural process.

For me personally, I am also still looking for something that not only tells me how to do "it", but ties "it" all together. How does the practice done here compare/contrast with (a) traditional vipassana, (b) Zen, and (c) Tibetan? But I can wait for a second book on that.

So what...two, three weeks?

I like all the ideas I've heard thus far. Good stuff.

I would add that I would be interested in a section on post-awakening practice / training. Once someone has gotten "off the ride" what then? Obviously the 3 gears would tie into that, as 3rd gear doesn't appear to have an end (at least not in the way 1st gear does), but an explicit section on this would be nice, as it isn't often included in the spiritual literature.

Also, I think that practice and enlightenment are important topics, but I think there are other important questions that your work could try to answer, such as "what is the significance of awakening in relation to the rest of our lives?" or "how do I live an awakened life?" There's the process of awakening and there's embodiment of awakening, the way its expressed, how it changes (or doesn't) change us. These are questions that I think a simple distinction between the three trainings doesn't really satisfy, and one that we should really be asking, unless we want to privilege the Universal over the Personal. Obviously I wouldn't expect you, or anyone for that matter, to be able to sufficiently answer those questions, but to take a stab at them and give them the credit they're due is definitely important (at least from where I'm "sitting"). ;-D

Best of luck Kenneth!

-Vince

-Vince

Great ideas - I can't wait for the book!

Whatever form it takes, I hope you will work towards "Westernization" of the vocabulary of awakening/enlightenment. I'd like to see terms from the Pali and other languages minimized and replaced by more current terminology that westerners can relate to.

It seems a little trite to say, 'more of the same'. But I can't help it. Thus far, your collected articles are really good.
I guess I can't really imagine you writing a book that would not be extremely useful. I don't have many suggestions. Vince's suggestions sounded really good.

I hope that somewhere in the book your own growing edge will be included, whatever it happens to be at that time. No need to label it as such. But would just be good to know that it's in there.

Really cool to hear you have a book in the works. I agree with pretty much everything thats been said. Specifically addressing what western lay practice looks like... Vince's idea about post ride practice sounds really intriguing... I am not close to that stage obviously but I have never seen it addressed in dharma books... I am sure its going to be good whatever it is... keep us posted...

With Metta,

Clayton

I like what Vince suggested. Please put me down for that, too.

Please dare to tell the raw truth of your clear perspective.

Please write what needs to be written but few want to read or contemplate. Please puncture and deflate the myths, remove all hope, lead your readers directly into the dark night and then show them the way out depends on surrendering *everything*.

Please dare to tell the raw truth, even if you have to bury it as a footnote in an appendix.

"

Please dare to tell the raw truth, even if you have to bury it as a footnote in an appendix.

"

hahaha. That's great!

One aspect of Buddhist teachings I've always found useful is the "near enemy" stuff (e.g. a near enemy of equanimity is apathy, etc). There are so many ways a practitioner can earnestly try to carry out instructions on a written page but just be slightly off, to their detriment, just because of hard-to-notice ambiguities in language. Very often the writer intends to communicate message A, but the way they've expressed it in writing is also perfectly consistent with being interpreted as B, and so the reader may mistake A for B with no way of knowing it until someone happens to point out to them "hey, that's not quite the idea". These problems are insidious because they are so difficult for the practitioner to detect, so any explicit information about them up front is always very useful.

Anything you could write about integrating practice with everyday life would be useful. For instance, what are good ways to get practice in off the cushion, and what practices should be saved for the cushion. What is a good idea to take with you and cultivate into work or social relations, and what is NOT a good idea to take with you into work or social relations, etc. I have in mind for instance the message mentioned in MCTB of "right plane, right time" which I'm still getting the hang of.

More detailed instruction about 2nd and 3rd gear practice might also be useful. For instance, I've found the recent distinctions between neighbor, bystander, witness etc. very useful. Anything along those lines of clarifying the nuances of these practices and clearing up potential confusions would be good. For 3rd gear, maybe because of the nature of surrender there isn't a whole lot to say about it. But there are things to say about the ways people could misconstrue the term "surrender" or somehow be blocking themselves from surrendering without realizing how.

Also, for 1st gear, it might be helpful to discuss how one's position on the map could/should inform practice. In the Hurricane Ranch discussion Hokai Sobol, talking about the difference between "doing it" and "getting it done", says something to the effect "getting it done is a question with 4 different logics corresponding to the 4 paths." But what are those 4 logics?

I love that you're working on a book, Kenneth. This is good news.

I like the idea of the book being centered around the Three Speeds. I think a parallel focus could be how the comprehensive theory and practice of the Three Speeds applies to practitioners at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of practice, as well as what may or may not be advisable at different levels of development.

One thing that concerns me a bit (if "concerns" is even the right word to use) is that there is so much we can say about 1st Gear (samatha-vipassana), less we can say about 2nd Gear, and even LESS we can say about third. I fear that if you aren't careful, the book could be too heavily weighted toward the 1st Gear.

Lastly, I really enjoy reading Satsang style dialogues between teacher and student. I think it would be beneficial to include these types of conversations either in a separate chapter or interspersed throughout the book. I'm sure you've had many dialogues regarding all three Speeds, and showing actual (if not revised) student-teacher conversations on the topic may help bring clarity to the teaching.

~Jackson

Thank you, everyone, for your wonderful ideas. I am following this thread with great interest, reading and re-reading it. And I am writing...

For those who haven't chimed in yet, please do. I'm listening.

Kenneth

I'm new to this community, but I've been lurking/learning for a few months. It is wonderful to witness such open dialogue and respect in the spirit of helping others on the path of awakening!

One thing I recently learned about myself was prompted by Telecaster's post of "Looking at vs. looking for". I noticed this tendency to seek something beyond what is right here, something that transcends this reality. My tendency was to think that the spiritual lies somewhere beyond the mundane.

Could you say something about this in your book? I've met others who've fallen into this same trap, and I think it might save others a lot of time and effort in their practice.

Thank You!

Tina

Hi Kenneth,
I'm already looking forward to reading your book.

The dharma book I'd like to read would tell me that all I'd have to do is read it, and all will be well.

Since you're not going to write it, the second best book would be the one about things I don't like to read, such as "don't jump to conclusions" and "look again" and so on, a book infuriatingly understocked in the "answers" department. You know, a book we can burn to ignite the fire which will eventually consume the proverbial stick stirring the fire.

(but seriously)

Cheers,
Florian

This is great news.

Three Speeds as the core would be great. I agree with telecaster regarding autobiography. Take us from before the "waterfall" when you started out thru the 3rd gear. Short of writing a trilogy (hmmm ), the level of the reader could be accommodated even if it means they have to skip some stuff for now.

Another thought about the book!

For me, I have found the use of certain terms, such as consciousness, awareness, luminosity, and emptiness to be somewhat confusing. I guess it's because people use them in different ways. And these are terms that Westerners are accustomed to using in everyday speech but in the context of wisdom they mean something else.

Could these words, and others, be clarified for those of us who are unclear of their meaning in the dharmic sense?

Tina

These days, what i most look for in dharma books is clarity about practice 'off the cushion', integrated with whatever daily life offers up. The technical, 'geeky' details are most interesting as expressed in life, and in accounts of how the practitioner's experience, perceptions, and behavior are changed by the insights arising from practice. In addition to what others have offered...

What a great project, by the way!