Community interferes with our development
as much as it assists and enables it--
and we have to walk the line
between too much community influence in our life
and too little.
You might sit down with
the Westminster Confession of Faith
some rainy afternoon,
for an encounter with what
too much community can do.
A slow walk in the rain
through a patch of local woods
would do more good for your soul
than a session
in the company
of the Westminster Divines.
So, when we talk about
the importance of community,
we have to qualify that with
"the right kind of community"
and "the right kind of influence."
Anything that would replace
our individual/personal sense
of our own integrity
with it's view of how our life
should be lived,
oversteps the Old Testament commandment,
"Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark!"
And robs us of the joy of our own discovery
of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
Emptiness,
stillness
and silence
remain the three best teachers
when it comes to knowing what's what
and what to do in response,
where, when and how,
and cannot be replaced with any form of community
influence or instruction.
Give the neophyte a Zazen cushion
with directions to meditate on their questions
and leave the room.
And then, bring them all together
in a community of peers to talk about
their experience
and expand their list of questions.
Follow that with more community insight and sharing
and more questions
ad nauseam
and you have introduced them
to the place of community in their lives.
If anyone tries to force their answers
onto anyone else,
those doing the forcing have to leave
the group and meditate on what they are doing
and where that comes from
until they think they are ready
to rejoin the community.
In this way, there is no excommunication,
just directed reflection/realization.
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Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 