AMA Answers

Ama's will always be part of r/zen.

Zen is a tradition of questions and answers.

1) Many of the most dense books are chocked full of opinions and instruction based on question and answer snippets.

2) books are built to constantly engage the reader with questions. By addressing the reader directly with hypotheticals or pointing out x or y is wrong etc.

The whole thing spins around questions and answers...and so will the forum.

Any large community that wishes to uphold interest above being a self help group does so by accountability.

1) amas give the users the power to know for themselves who they are dealing with. Unfortunately, every other person into "zen" is trying to sell you something. And in Buddhism/ zen, this very very much includes "scholars" as well. I''m not distrustful of scholars, I'm distrustful of apologetics disguised as school work.

2) amas are a record. Unfortunately, there are many users here that play nice for a while, then explode in a fit of anger, and erase all of their anger, wait a while, them start over, tricking new people all over again. This is hard to deal with because it's such a good trick!

3) asking for amas teaches people how to take an active roll in keeping their community accountable.

What doesn't make this stuff not true

1) Earlier a user posted an answer to a question and answer that was supposed to prove a straw man he came up with about how people think amas are zen. Obviously, answers during amas aren't meant to dissuade from amas. This is like when people get confused a out how you can have a forum on a tradition "not based on the written word"

2) some people don't like to ama, are shy, or are nervous. This is a community for people that want to contribute towards zen discussion. Not contributing because you are shy is great, whining that the group doesn't allow your exact personality type is not.

Submitted March 19, 2022 at 04:49AM by TFnarcon9 https://ift.tt/jkOz7M4