Sunshine Cafe Tables
April 25, 2010 by Mark Szpakowski 
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In discussing how to create enlightened society, Chögyam Trungpa suggested, with the Standing Committee for Nova Scotia in 1982, the idea of using a coffehouse form for conversation, and proposed the name Sunshine Café. I hosted such a café at my home for a while back then.
Here we could do a virtual, on-line form of that. I have created a Sunshine Cafe “category” for articles. Each such article can serve as a table, with some people sitting at that table. Conversations take the form of comments, hopefully mindful of speech, attentive to elocution, aware of intention.
For example, such a table could host the ongoing Ash – Rita – James conversations. Anyone is free to join it, but that table is a place for Ash and Rita and James to continue their discussion, and for their comments which might take off from another article’s topic but which drift from it.
I have received lots of feedback from RFS readers that the sheer volume of some comment threads is drowning out the conversation on those threads. Hopefully café tables can be one way to provide an outlet for such discussion.
As head waiter here, I will try the experiment of being diligent about attending to comments, pruning them if they seem to digress off topic, while at the same time encouraging their authors to use café tables for those.
If you or a group would like a café table, let me know.
Your comments on and participation in this experiment are welcome.
– Mark Szpakowski
Dear Mr;Szpakowski,We would like to have a CelticBuddhist Table if that would be O.K,
Thank You
Arthur
Send me (at weblog at radiofreeshambhala dot org) the name you would like to use for the table, as well as an image to go with it. (The image will be scaled down to 110×110 pixels.)
BTW, same goes for the James-Rita-Ash Table – let me know if you want to change the name or image.
– Mark
Very excellent Mr. Szpakowski. Your precision, creativity and even guidance has been skillful.
In some instances the threads here become several thousand lines long, and can wander (such is mind) off the topics of discussion. This can be cumbersome for web browsers (both software, and persons).
IMHO, the offerings, and subsequent comments in these predominantly important dialogues, deserve our contemplation, examination of intention, focus and concision to be helpful to others.
May compassion increase.
Yes Evan I do agree with what you are saying but there also has to be space for more extended conversations (CTR suggested this Sunshine cafe principle for example) – so I would encourage you and others to form more tables around issues if you want – this is the democracy element of the triad monarchy, democracy,communism online.
Best
Rita
Thank you so much Mr.,Spzakowski we will do that within the next few days,
With Respect,
Arthur Conolly,
Celtic Buddhist Student