Cleaning up the Zen wiki or creating a better FAQ has been on my mind for a while. I've gotten a ton of quality information from this subreddit, but very little of it came from the links to the wiki I was repeatedly given.
I've noticed that some of the pages I'm able to edit and others I cannot. Here are the two links in the sidebar.
The r/taoism FAQ page would serve as a good model. It's actually made up of three pages:
- The FAQ - https://www.reddit.com/r/taoism/wiki/faq
- Terminology - https://www.reddit.com/r/taoism/wiki/terminology
- A reading list - https://www.reddit.com/r/taoism/wiki/reading_material
I think r/zen would definitely need a "Zen Masters" page. The line separating some masters might be fuzzy, but there are definitely universally agreed upon masters (Mazu, Huangpo) and universally disagreed upon masters (modern masters like Thich Nhat Hanh and Shengyan who blend Buddhism and Zen together).
I believe an easy to follow FAQ page with related pages would solve a lot of the "problems" the sub runs into. I'll give an example from my experience on the sub.
Quote the masters
I heard this over and over again in the beginning but... there wasn't a clear guide of who was included in the list of "Zen masters". I found the various lists on the wiki but there wasn't consistency between what I found in the lists and what I experienced interacting on the sub. The reading list includes:
- Zen Mind Beginner's Mind (Shrunyu Suzuki)
- Hardcore Zen (Brad Warner)
But these two dudes get shit on here! lol Like... if they're going to get shit on, don't include them or... if they're included shitting on them should be against the rules (or at least frowned upon). Another example was me assuming Shengyan was a Zen/Chan master worth posting here. He's included on the "list of supposed Zen masters" on Terebess which is included but, again, the vocal majority disagree.
Dogen is even listed on one of the lineage lists but then there's a whole page dedicated to "sexual predators" mainly made up of Dogen's lineage as well as a page of "fraudulent texts" which includes Dogen's work.
The point of view held by many on this sub is interesting but figuring it out was WAY more work than it should have been. A useful FAQ page would have sorted me out in a matter of minutes instead of hours spread out over weeks... lol
Anyhow... if the mods/community is cool with it, I'll start working on content for an updated FAQ as well as some supporting pages. I'd work it up in Google Docs before making any edits.
tl;dr I'd like to help clean up the FAQ/wiki if the community is cool with that. :)
Submitted December 18, 2019 at 10:41AM by CaseyAPayne https://ift.tt/2M8dhFB
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