Forum for Modern Dhamma Text Study?

[christopher:::]

In line with a suggestion I made a few days ago in the "Ask a Teacher" thread, would people be interested in a specific subforum (perhaps in the Study Group or Modern Theravada forums) for discussing modern Dhamma texts? When I made a similar suggestion earlier I emphasized the idea that we should have facilitators leading the discussions, but maybe that isn't needed. It would be nice though if there was one place set aside for modern texts (both online and in book forms). Otherwise what happens is someone starts a discussion on a book or modern Dhamma teacher and it kind of gets lost, and then later someone else might start a new discussion.

[cooran]

Hello Christopher,

Why don't you just start a thread on a particular text? If there is enough continuing interest, it will demonstrate a need. If not, it won't.

with metta
Chris

[retrofuturist]

Greetings Chris:::,

Otherwise what happens is someone starts a discussion on a book or modern Dhamma teacher and it kind of gets lost, and then later someone else might start a new discussion.

Further to Cooran's excellent suggestion, I would recommend in such instances taking the time to carefully and explicitly define the parameters of the discussion in the opening post. If the first posting is a bit woolly, it's far easier for things to go off-topic. If the first post is framed well, it's easier for moderators (either through reading the topic, or via reports made by members) to determine that something is off-topic. It's far easier to do this than for anyone to expect that members and moderators are able to read their mind.

Metta,
Retro.

[christopher:::]

Hi. Okay, i will do that and start a thread on Ajahn Chah's Online Dhamma Talks. But members are still faced with the situation that book and dhamma talk threads are scattered throughout the forum, some buried many pages back, with OPs varying in how well they are written. Having a section for books and dhamma talks provides a contextual "frame" of sorts, to keep them in one location. It would allow us to look through a variety of threads and get some ideas about what books/texts/talks we wanted to study and read.