Please work within the culture of this community

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Finally, there is Gresham's law, which says that the legitimate issuer of a currency cannot allow counterfeiting.... Counterfeiting is not allowed.

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And I feel the need to address this paragraph too, since it seems reasonable to assume that it is directed at me in this context. The issue at which you have hinted with your rhetoric, Kenneth, is I think this one: in your opinion, I am misrepresenting myself as understanding through experience something which I have merely cobbled together from a bunch of reading.
While I don't have much invested in changing your mind, since I can tell the difference between wrathful clarity and rhetorical attempts to control a group, the situation has a chilling effect on my ability to participate here. Judging from your increasing use of more or less indirect insults to me, I assume that it is in fact your objective to encourage me, through attempting to humiliate or emberass me, to accept the status of a "beginner" in this community. The only problem I have with that is that I'm not sure where it's coming from! It seems to me that -- although I make no claim of beginner or advanced- you're opinion is founded on miscomunication at best. If I speak with authority about my experience, so be it. If you for whatever reason believe I am deeply deluded or simply a fraud then you should just ban me from this site, and on with your day.
But meanwhile I am certainly open to different takes on awakeness, to learning new approaches, to having my understanding engaged in a way that actually meets me where I am and helps me grow.
Another aspect of beginner's mind, as I understand it, is that being beyond the duality of ego-enlightenment, there is always further learning and unfolding possible within the space of our completely fulfilled and satisfied nature. That's why I'm here. To deepen my trust in that nature, and to continue learning how better to express it!

"I hear you, Roomy; beginner's mind is good. The question is: what is the difference between beginner's mind and simply being a beginner? What are the behaviors associated with beginner's mind? Does beginner's mind condescend? Pontificate? Seek attention?
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Kenneth-- the question of what IS beginner's mind is really too useful and pregnant with possibilities to languish in the off-topic section. Is there some way to get it going somewhere out of the shadows?

For starters, my take on 'the difference between beginner's mind and simply being a beginner' is that for someone who is NOT a beginner, the pitfalls you mention are perhaps a greater danger, for themselves and their audience-- they are unprotected by visible naivete and ignorance. They don't go lighting the filter end of the cigarette while talking about how they smoke all the time!

-- for starters. Others probably have a lot of insightful things to say on the subject. I'd be interested in your further thoughts, as well.

"Is there some way to get it going somewhere out of the shadows?
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Roomy, just start a thread.

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For starters, my take on 'the difference between beginner's mind and simply being a beginner' is that for someone who is NOT a beginner, the pitfalls you mention are perhaps a greater danger, for themselves and their audience-- they are unprotected by visible naivete and ignorance. "

Wow, nicely put! Kate (and anyone else), do you think that there is a meaningful difference, for practice and life, between samsaric habits that are protected by naivete and ignorence and samsaric habits that are more exposed and raw? WHat I mean is, do you think it is normal for a practitioner at a certain point to drop some of their personality defenses and present their "positive" and "negative" traits in a more direct way, without immediately trying to cultivate positive traits and reject "negative" ones? Or do you think that this is an approach which is too dangerous? Do you know what I mean? It seems to me that there is so much more freedom to learn in being direct with my karmic activity, rather than cloaking it in a bunch of self-censoring judgments and comparisons, in which case it will all come out anyway but in a form "protected by naivete and ignorance", that is protected from my ability to take responsibility for it. Does this make any sense to you?
--Jake