The greater MAPLE community
How we think about attacks online against us
The term “sangha” in a historical context within Buddhism is used variously to refer to (1) the enlightened disciples of the Buddha, (2) the ordained disciples of the Buddha, (3) all practitioners of the teachings of the Buddha. In the time of the Buddha, the community of monastics and laypeople who lived together in order to practice the Buddhadharma were sometimes divided. In some cases the Buddha rebuked one of the groups, and in one case the Buddha sent monks into a town to denounce an individual who was causing discord within the sangha.
We humbly study the teachings of the Buddha in the hopes of finding the wisdom to run our own community in the most beneficial possible way. To this end, and in acknowledgement of the vastness of the challenge and the profundity of the teachings of the Buddha, when a person leaves our community and attacks us, we do not consider that they have suddenly become part of some different group, but rather that the individual or individuals who left are still part of our community, and that, for now, our community is divided.
We had a writer visit us recently at MAPLE, and this writer brought up, in reference to the attacks on us online, the question of whether it is our (MAPLE’s) own projections into the world that are bringing about these attacks.
As evidence, this writer mentioned that, in conversations he had had with AI fellows at MAPLE, that the AI fellows brought up the attacks before he himself brought them up.
The first thing to say is that it’s good that people at MAPLE are listening to critiques. We want to exemplify that, to learn what we can, and so that our critics also can listen to us.
But most important: we are all part of the same community. Our critics aren’t a different group “out there”. They are part of the larger MAPLE sangha. For now, that sangha is divided. We are constantly and intimately aware of the divisions within the Sangha, and it is of grave concern to us. That is not a projection “out” into some separate world, but rather is a reflection of the gravity of divisions within the sangha.
May we find the wisdom to know how to care for all beings, and the compassion to enact that within our community, our lives, and the world.
Clueshin