Lotus and Lily Field Notes

I had a nice comment on my post about the Blogisattva Awards from Tom at Blogisattva:

1. The blog I contribute to at work is part of the ferociously interbloggish “biblioblogosphere” (librarian bloggers).  I find myself intermittently getting pulled into the “chattering classes” mentality (honestly, at times it feels just exactly like high school)–but at the same time the conversations there are often wonderfully rich and powerful.  Honestly I think it helps that librarians write about issues related to running libraries–profound issues of information and its uses in a free society, but perhaps not quite as fraught, or divisive, or insular as religion and spirituality can be.  In librarianship, collaboration is the Name of the Game.  As in any online community, the library blog world goes through predictable patterns of extremely valuable interchange and silly emotional turf wars.  Hmm, sort of like any congregation.  Although perhaps peculiarly like a congregation composed entirely of the quasi-narcissistic, emotional and expressive people who write blogs (I should know, I’m one of them).  On balance, though, the reach and potency of the library blogging community is quite extraordinary, and in my opinion something to aspire to (to dip your toe in this pool, I suggest starting with Librarian in Black, one of my favorites–she will lead you into many wonderful lands).
2. I started working on that blog before I launched this one.  When I started here, I assumed I would, fairly easily, connect up with what Tom nicely describes as a “blogging congregation” (blog-gregation?)  For a variety of reasons this critical mass has not yet formed in my particular space.  The Buddhist-Christian dual-practice nature of this blog seems to me to have a lot to do with it: it’s just not that comfortable for a lot of people to hang out in the spaces in-between.  A good blog-gregation has a commonality of purpose and perspective that allows for connections to multiply.  It may be that there aren’t quite enough explicitly Buddhist-Christian bloggers, or maybe not enough Buddhist-Christians, to sustain such a social network of people who communicate in this way.  There are a lot of good Christian blogs and a lot of good Buddhist blogs (some are listed on the side-bar here): and just as in real life being a Buddhist-Christian doesn’t necessarily make you all that welcome in either community.
3. I think it’s hard to predict what a critical mass of mutually-referential Buddhist bloggers (never mind Buddhist-Christian bloggers) might accomplish.  It’s an odd and unpredictable medium.  I think a lot of blogging (good blogging and not-so-good) is driven by ego: the drive for recognition, the need to build up one’s traffic and one’s reputation.  So what would happen in a community of bloggers who are very explicitly exploring liberation from the bounds of the ego?  Does the whole thing collapse (sort of like many past Buddhist empires, which mostly fell apart in the face of the obvious self-contradiction of such a notion)?  Or does some lovely, graceful and totally unique dance of collaboration begin to emerge?  Can we model the working of the dharma, and the building of a healthy sangha, in this space?
4. One meta-comment on these thoughts: this is a longer post than I’ve written in some time.  When a blogger says to another blogger: “I’d love to hear your comments on X”, it’s sure to stimulate more thinking, more writing, and more sharing.  Thanks Tom!  And I can’t close this without acknowledging the terrific and dedicated Wulfila, who behaves just like a good blog-friend should (he’s a much more faithful reader of my blog than I am of his).  May more connections of this kind develop!

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