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Hey Will,
You know- I do tend to agree with you in my own experience, however I think ultimately, a group that has sat a lot together creates a much stronger field that can enhance practice even more. Scattered, intermittent, occasional, or multi-leveled groups with adepts and beginners tend to be much more diluted in strength, which makes me want to go back to my solo practice.
I think this really tells about the challenge of forging a strong, regular practice group out of a lay community. Short of doing that, individual practice seems to take on greater importance, however a lot of people find practicing easier with others because they're more easily able to show up and actually do the practice than by themselves.
I think the balance point is somewhere in between. When we can each hone our own practice in a way that is consistent enough to jive with others' (using a common form such as zazan, samatha/shine, a sadhana, vipassana, ngondro, or other) through dedicated self-discipline, and the flexibility to open up that practice to being able to do it in a group as well is the best. However, this can be challenging often.
I've found it is easiest to do group practice in low-form contexts, such as samatha, and zazen, rather than the highly ritualized, varied and distinct Vajrayana sadhanas. I tend to thrive on stability, and repitition and generate power through relying on a practice that goes the way I'm used to every time. So, this can be hard when practicing with a group that does the practice differently. That's where the flexibility aspect should enter in, and push one to broaden the scope of the efficacy of one's practice. How much one does that is of course best determined by individual preference.
Since many Western Buddhists have practiced in primarilty solo modes, with books or CDs or courses as their guides, rather than in a stable, communal fashion, we definitely tend to be much more solo and individualistic in our practices, and in our way of relating to our own spiritual paths, much more so than ethnically-contexted traditions, such as Thai or Sinhalese Theravada, Tibetan, or Zen communities.
These traditions have a lot to offer us Westerners in the ways of possible benefits from embracing a more group-centric practice mode, however we are challenged to integrate into that well.
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