Thank you for your input.
This is certainly a concern for those of us who have sporadic contact with real teachers (for various reasons). It's easy to fall into an attitude that what one is doing is "good enough" and get thoroughly sidetracked into mediocre practise...Paññāsikhara wrote: In such a context, it may be much easier for the student to work out where they are at. Rather than tiny little Dharma centers, where anybody who has read the Idiots Guide to Buddhism, and sat on the floor for 20 minutes, and then thinks that they are enlightened, it is a very different situation.
Probably a discussion for another thread:
I agree, and would add that I think that "westerners" are confused between "westernization" (in terms of ideals) and "modernization" (in terms of material stuff). I.e. they think that just because people in Asia have become "modern" they are also "western", or that they care, or should care, about "western ideas".Paññāsikhara wrote: Personally, I think that a lot (but not all) the "westernization" hype is something of a scapegoat. If they dropped all the western stuff, but still had all the modernization and industrialization that they really want, they would still have pretty much the same problems that some try to blame on westernization.
Metta
Mike