80.2.21.233

Assume Good Faith

I feel very hurt by the way you phrase many of your comments. I want us to work together on this article and I want to value your contribution. When you left comments within the proposed new article I felt threatened because I wanted by own contribution to remain intact so that Emmdee could read it. It made the new article difficult to read because there was not immediately any way of seeing who had written what. Please try to leave conventional comments and sign off with four tildes.

The following are quotes from the comments you left interspersed in my proposition that I found hurtful:

"This is an attempt to portray the traditions as sexist", "This is pure propaganda." - Wikipedia has a policy called 'Assume good faith.' You are expected to assume that I am working for the benefit of wikipedia to try and make this article of good quality. Perhaps this is difficult for you since you have such a low opinion of the FWBO and you know that I am practising in it. But I must ask that, on the fwbo talk page, you address me as though you thought I was a good person. When you use phrases like, 'attempt to portray,' and, 'this is pure propaganda,' I feel hurt because it sounds as though you are accusing me of being underhand.

"I'd leave this out, two weeks is an embarrassingly short period of a time for a proper retreat" - This statement was irrelevant. The word, 'proper,' in particular, sounded judgemental - as if you are telling me what constitutes effective spiritual practice. The word, 'embarrassingly,' was very undermining. I could sit here and justify to you why two weeks is a fine length of time for a retreat but I'm not going to. Please think carefully about what you type.

"Practicing'with a c, Buddhist, capital B-you just can't get the staff nowadays" - Can't get the staff? Isn't that phrase often used to imply someone's ineptitude? I don't know whether your intention was to make me look stupid - I hope it wasn't - but please be aware that this is how it sounded. By the way - practise is the verb, practice is the noun. It's like advise and advice.

This is from another part of the talk page:

"Maybe it would be good for you to talk to some people from outside the Order!I wonder, do you talk to anyone in Buddhism, outside the Order? ... I, for instance, feel concern for one so obviously young as yourself, who it seems, has only ever encountered Buddhism through the Order's eyes and yet seem so keen to vehemently defend them. What does that say about the effect your association has had on your facility to keep an open mind? Mahablahblah 7:36 June 23 07" - I have already responded to this on the talk page but I see no evidence that you have actually read it. If you think I am the victim of brainwashing or something, address such concerns to me personally on my talk page. Discussing it in front of other people is deeply humiliating for me. As for pretending as though you had signed off under the name of mahablahblah - how do you think mahaabaala would feel about that? Why did you do that?

If you go to my userpage and my usertalk page you can find out enough information about me to understand who you are working with. I can learn no such thing about you. If you intend to continue to contribute to wikipedia it would make it much easier for all concerned if you set up a user account. Rupa zero 15:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

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