Hello everyone!
We have been talking with Lama Sherab about something that seems to come up a lot: the expectation of answers, when you contact us.
And I get it: we both come from teaching styles where the contact with the Guru was sporadic, and usually confined to very specific matters, say every three months. Even when I lived with my teachers, for some time, there wasn’t ever the impulse to ask them about mundane matters.
I think that this is partially the Tibetan culture, partially the lack of clear expectations for what the role of a guru in modern times is. So, we set out to improve the situation for our students.
We wrote Kinky Buddhism.
We started multiple channels for communications.
We do AMAs and other kinds of posts.
It proved overly effective.
Too effective, even.
We have been getting a lot of, let’s say, less critical questions and worried queries when I was travelling. Things that range from practice related “I had this dream…” to “tell me about some cool Buddhist movies to watch” (just go see Incantation).
Then, I received some worried inquiries about my health. I couldn’t answer because I was in a retreat, but that got me to think that we have created this expectation of immediate answer.
And it’s 100% our fault (Lama Sherab’s and myself) for not clarifying things faced with the growing number of students.
Therefore, I wanted to propose a compact for everyone who’s a student.
If you reach to us, here’s what we’re committing to, if you message us directly:
If you preface your communication with [RED] we will drop off whatever we are doing and try to help you. Please use this for life-threatening situations that are time critical. Also, do not misuse this. We both work a lot, so if you use this to get our attention and it’s not really a code RED, we will mute you for a time.
If what you are asking is about practice, please send [YELLOW] in the message. While it’s not critical, we related to each other through our practice, so for us it is very important. We will answer those within a moon (i.e.28 days) at most, but we try to answer those within the week.
If it’s not about something critical or something practice related, don’t send any info in the message. We will certainly try to answer all those questions, but we will do so as soon as we can, no promises.
But where do you message us?
In Discord.
If you’re a student who has completed P-1, you have access to our Discord. This is our primary means of communication. Sure, some of the closest students have our WhatsApp and should use that, but for most students, Discord will be the means of communication. We both have alerts for it, and we check it daily. Also, if you have any of the [YELLOW] questions, there are channels for most of our practices there, so there's a high chance that any senior student or Lama can answer it very quickly if you ask it in the correct Discord channel.
What to do if you’re not a student, but still want to reach out? Well, you have our contact form in www.tantricsorcery.com. We get alerts of that, too, but we’re usually slower to answer. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc…we will answer when we can, but if you want us to communicate quickly with you, you are better served joining Discord.
I hope this helps clarify and let’s keep in touch!
-LF
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