Introduction

Welcome to the Aro enquiry forum!

Before posting, please read the Etiquette section (with rules about posting messages) and the Privacy section.

The forum is quite simple to use. If you aren’t sure what is going on, just click on things to see what they do. Nothing bad will happen.

There are just a few non-obvious things to describe.

Logging in and out

You don’t want someone else using your account and posting messages as you.

When you log in, you can specify how long you will stay logged in. If you are using your own computer, you can set this to stay logged in forever, and then you never need to type your password again. On a computer that other people use—especially a public computer, such as at a cybercafe—staying logged in forever will let other users—perhaps unfriendly strangers—pretend to be you. In that case, it’s better to have the forum automatically log you out after an hour. You can also log yourself out using the top menu, but logging in for a limited time saves you having to remember.

If you are already logged in ‘forever’ on a public terminal, you can log yourself out explicitly, and then log in again with a one-hour time-out.

Please choose a password that contains both letters and numbers and would be difficult for a computer to guess. Unfortunately, there are miscreants who attack web sites like this one, using computers to systematically guess every word in the dictionary as passwords. If they guess yours, they will post offensive advertisements under your name. You can change your password at by going to the subscriptions page, following the link to the subscription manager for your region, logging in, and following the ‘change password’ link.

Reading messages

Text is color-coded according to a Tantric elemental color scheme:

Blue links navigate you through web space.
Green indicates actions.
Red links are the names of sections or messages, to entice you to read them.
White text is informative (for clarity).
Yellow items are stable or decorative.

The forum keeps track of which messages you have read. Ones you haven’t read are ‘new’, and will be marked as such. If there’s a bunch of messages you don’t want to read, and don’t want to keep seeing them as ‘new’, you can use the Mark as Read button. You can also Mark Unread, to effectively save a message for later.

You may not want to visit the forum often just to see new posts. You can use the Notify button to get an email whenever there is a new post in a particular area. This is particularly useful if you want to know about replies to your own messages. When you post a message, you can tick a button to get notifications.

Etiquette

It is in the nature of internet forums (and of samsara) that they tend to produce unseemly arguments. This forum is, therefore, a useful place to practice the essential Buddhist principles of conduct.

The most fundamental Buddhist commitments are to openness and kindness (corresponding to emptiness and form). Openness in this context means tolerance for other viewpoints. This is a forum for open-ended enquiry – not for disputation. Kindness implies considering carefully the impact of your messages on readers. Employ discretion; abjure aggression. When in doubt, consult your teacher before posting, or wait a day or two to let allow emotional reactions to be moderated by circumspection.

The commitments of openness and kindness are elaborated in the Five Precepts. In Aro, the Five Precepts are taught from point of view of Dzogchen, in terms of the Sutra (or Song) of the Owl-Headed Dakini. In Dzogchen view, it is taken for granted that we will not engage in gross misconduct that the precepts literally forbid. Therefore they extend to more subtle aspects of behaviour and view.

The Precept against stealing extends to stealing—wasting—other people’s time. Postings here should be relevant to their topics; and topics should be relevant to the subject of Dharma generally. This is not the place to discuss politics, for example – spiritual or otherwise.

The Precept against lying extends to what is called ‘mi kha’ in Tibetan. Mi kha includes one-upmanship, put-downs, gossip, slander, defamation, harassment, abuse, and so forth ad nauseam.

Beyond the Precepts are the Fourteen Root Vows of Vajrayana. Although only ordained Tantrikas are actually bound by the Root Vows, they are useful for everyone to observe.

One of the Root Vows is to refrain from sectarianism. This forum is not the place to compare the merits of any religions, schools, sects, or lineages; or in particular to denigrate any of these. Sectarianism reflects a failure to understand the principle of the yanas – that all spiritual paths are useful to some people, depending on where we find ourselves.

Two of the Root Vows concern teaching. One vow enjoins us to teach those who sincerely seek instruction; another forbids revealing esoteric teachings to those who are not ready for them. Thoughtful consideration is required to meet the requirements of both Vows at once.

Apprentices should bear in mind when posting here that our messages are labelled as such, and we may be seen as representatives of the Aro lineage.

All of these principles are common sense really – and are not difficult to follow if we maintain simple awareness of kindness and openness. They are not intended to inhibit open and vigorous communication.

In the unlikely event that you see a posting that appears to violate these principles, or to be otherwise objectionable, you can use the Report to moderator button. A small group of apprentices have volunteered to ‘moderate’ this forum, to help us all maintain mindfulness of etiquette. They may modify or remove objectionable messages. In extreme cases, if someone repeatedly misbehaves, the moderators have the power to revoke a user’s ability to post messages.

Privacy

To encourage civility, users’ actual names appear with their postings. (Many forums make it possible to hide behind a ‘screen name’, which tends to encourage thoughtless behaviour.) This makes it obvious that you are responsible for your own messages. On the other hand, no other personal information is revealed to other users; in particular, not your email address, or other contact information. (Some forums do make such information available to all users.) Your email and IP addresses are available to the moderators, however, in case they need to reach you.

What is posted in this forum should stay here. Please do not: a. make what someone else has said here public, b. email it to a friend, or c. copy it elsewhere.

Although we hope everyone abides by this rule, we cannot be certain of it. Therefore, it is unwise to post anything here that would be embarrassing or harmful to you if it did become public.

Posting messages

There are three ways to start a new post.

The New Topic button lets you introduce a new topic, for which you supply the name. Please make this title specific and descriptive, so readers know what the topic is about without having to read the actual posts.

Within an existing topic, you can Reply to the topic in general, or you can Reply with quote to a specific message.

When you are writing a message, you get an editor window. You type the text of your message here. Above the editor window, there is a row of buttons that let you format the text. You can make it italic, change its size, and so on. These buttons actually insert special ‘tags’ into the text that are in square brackets. For example, to italicise text, it is surrounded by [i] at the beginning and [/i] at the end. If you get familiar with the tags, you can type them yourself instead of using the buttons.

Proper grammar, diction, spelling, and use of diacritical marks is encouraged. Not everyone here speaks English as a first language, however, so please make allowances for the mistakes of others.

When you are finished editing your message, you can push the Post button. If you aren’t sure the formatting is correct, you can press Preview to see how it will look.

After you have posted a message, it will appear (for you but not other users) with a Modify button, so you can alter it if you change your mind. (Your message might also be modified or deleted by the forum moderators if it’s not consistent with etiquette.)

Options

If you visit this forum more than occasionally, it will be worth your while to visit Options from the top menu. You can configure many choices here to change the way the software behaves.

The forum software we use normally allows users to view information about each other. The ‘Options’ section is normally called the Profile section, and would store personal information. We have configured it to allow ordinary users to see only each other’s names. However, perhaps confusingly, you’ll still see ‘Profile’ in the sub-menu.