LabelingThoughts:About
From LabelingThoughts
Contents |
What is the LabelingThoughts?
This web site is both an experiment and my offering to the Shambhala community. It is an attempt to create a searchable glossary with citations and cross-references for topics and terms in the Shambhala lineage. It is intended to be an unofficial resource for study and an opportunity for collaboration and discussion.
The site is an experiment, meaning that I am soliciting feedback more than publicizing it as any kind of resource yet. I would appreciate both your feedback and your insights to influence the site's vision, direction, and approach. My name is David Evans. Thank you for visiting.
Relationship to Shambhala International
This web site is not affiliated with the Shambhala International organization or staff nor is it funded or managed by Shambhala International in any way. This web site invites all members of the diverse Shambhala community to participate. If you are a member of the Shambhala community, please add comments to pages with suggestions or request an account to edit pages.
What it is not
It is not an attempt to act as a substitute for the words of our teachers. As ultimately a collaborative effort, there is no guarantee of accuracy, no formal review or editing nor a process beyond our own efforts to ensure usefulness. It is not an attempt to arrive at definitive meaning or authoritative teachings on topics. It is an attempt to collaboratively produce a glossary with thorough citations where students may both search for references and contribute further references.
This web site is not an alternative to working with a qualified meditation instructor nor an attempt to provide general practice and study advice or guidance to students. I strongly recommend any Shambhala practitioners maintain a relationship with a qualified instructor to have personal guidance with their meditation practice. Please refer to the member section of shambhala.org for recommended, official practice and study resources.
This site is also not intended to be a catalog of all Tibetan lineages and views. Though references from other lineages may be helpful, we can try to make them distinct from Shambhala to avoid confusing readers. Citing differing views and views from other lineages may be instructive, however.
Contributing
This web site is powered by the same software as Wikipedia, and invites a similar kind of collaborative effort by volunteers to extend, correct, and evolve the site. Unlike Wikipedia, anonymous editing will not be allowed. However, a Quick Comment form appears at the bottom of every page allowing non-account holders to post comments. Every article has a corresponding "Talk" or discussion page. Aside from comments only account holders may edit pages directly, but any member of the extended Shambhala community may request an account.
This may attract some chaos — which is fine — but I'm confident that we can maintain civility, keep a view of basic goodness, and produce something of merit.
An Offering
All of the content on this site — unless expressly marked otherwise by an administrator — is covered by the creative commons 3.0 license. Contributions to the site legally remain the property of their creators, while this license ensures the content is freely distributable, modifiable, and reproducible. So if you do participate in this process, you'll be releasing your work into the commons and that is a non-revokable act. This is also true of comments that you leave on discussion pages.
Joining Heaven and Earth
Starting with a set of guidelines and basic policies and then contemplating what vision we may have for a web site like this, please join me in creating something helpful and making a practice out of scholarship and sharing our dharma research.
The vision, practice and guidelines for this site are mere sketches. Please comment:
Please Help
- Comment on articles, offering suggested definitions or thoughts or critiques
- Add more reference material: index a book, or add specific book chapters as resources for terms
- Help move articles along our review tiers, from Stubs to Defined to Detailed
- Pick one from the Stubs tier and add a short definition. Swap the {{stub}} template at the end of the article with a [[:Category:Defined]] category.
- Pick one from Category:Defined and add a "See also" section by searching for related terms and listing them. Then research pages in the Further reading section and note which are definitive references, which are passing mentions, and which have unique uses for the term or concept. Then swap the [[:Category:Defined]] at the end of the article for [[:Category:Detailed]]
- Or just browse articles and comment or add something to them that inspires you!
Wikipedia Editors
Familiar with Wikipedia editing? Editing and including citations are in the same format. We also have some of the same templates, styles and extensions. If there's a template you'd like to use please add it. Leave a note for David if you'd like certain extensions added or need help moving favorite templates here.
Some further notes:
- I'm including inline citations using the Cite extension's <ref> tags.
- I've sketched some guidelines for inclusion of Wikipedia content
- I've sketched a comparison of Wikipedia policies
- Review templates here already setup
- Use the wikipedia template to add an article to a list of articles that have wikipedia analogs
History
The idea for this site came about during the first Shambhala Networking Conference in Boston, Massachusetts during the fall of 2006. That conference was a gathering of some technology enthusiasts and administrators in the Shambhala community. At that conference, Ed Keizer suggested that something similar to the Wikipedia would be a useful resource for the Shambhala community. I agreed but didn't begin work on the site until about one year later. The site and the server were first setup on 18 December 2007.
The name of the site
The site is named Labeling Thoughts as a reference to the basic Shambhala meditation instruction of labeling and as a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that terms and concepts are thoughts that we can draw distinctions about and categorize. From 2008 through early 2009, I named the site Tanjur, a reference to the commentaries on the words of the Buddha.
Thank you
In particular I'd like to thank Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the Vidhyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Ani Pema Chödrön, Khenpo Gawang, and the lineage of teachers that have dedicated their lives so that genuine wisdom could be passed down to my generation and benefit us.
I'd like to thank Nyima Wimberly, Gina Griffin, and Dave Collins for their help adding content to the site, and John D. Smith for his advice in how to proceed. I'd like to thank the following sangha members for their encouragement in creating this project: Acharya Moh Hardin, Acharya Jeremy Hayward, Acharya Adam Lobel, Acharya Bill McKeever, Acharya Robert Puts, Ann Cason, Amy Conway, Heather Crone, Gregg Eller, Alison McKee, Mark Mounts, Irini Rockwell, Penelope Sands, Josh Silberstein, John D. Smith, Tracy Steele, Mark Szpakowski, and Alex Wright.
Sarva Mangalam
