Reply To: Approach to Dhamma

#40646
dosakkhayo
Participant

“Another idea that came to my mind yesterday is whether we should start another website for beginners.”

l am with you on it deeply. In fact, I was trying to bring it up first. I thought a lot about what I could give people who first came across this site. I felt that we should think of three things.

1. They need some motivation to move on to learning more profound concepts.

One gets more motivation when one sees that one’s effort gives good consequences. So I hope this new site will cover content that more directly shows the connection between life experiences and concepts. Perhaps the site’s prospective readers are quite hard to know how tremendous it is to have all of asava removed. So I think it would be good to express it in a different way. For example, I think it can be expressed that “You will be able to make sure that you never get the problem wrong again, which you have habitually repeatedly.”
– I am trying to be able to speak English like a native speaker. But it is likely to take quite a long time. I hope there is someone who could help me with polishing my writing.

2. The number of posts on the new site should be small.

Because if the number of posts is too high, readers will be overwhelmed. Therefore, it should focus on the significance of the core concept. The posts have to deal with what changes when one learns Dhamma and how it actually changes one’s life. It would be better to focus on simple but powerful changes. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. So I think I could help lal on this point later.

3. They should be able to focus on more important concepts by the new site.

They don’t have to jump into everything about Buddhism from the beginning. It is better to repeatedly focus on key information that can bring about meaningful change.

These criteria are also considered when I write the column. And what I learned while making this was that I could get a sense of the effort for us in Lal’s writing. As I read your article, I felt some differences from any other Buddhist publications. In your writing, I saw expressions that only those who actually understood the concept could write. It was a completely different type of writing from the existing Buddhist books that repeated what was previously written like a parrot. Only those who really want to tell the reader something can write such a thing. These were the driving force behind my steady reading of all the posts on Pure Dhamma. Once again, I would like to take this opportunity to thank lal for your service.

I also have a selection of some posts that are good for beginners to see. I’ll organize it and upload it here tomorrow.