Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Buddhism/Archive 1

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Mongol prince

I don't know where to post it. Can someone knowledgeable about Sanskrit reconstruct the original name of the Prince of Liang from the Chinese transcription 把匝剌瓦爾密 (ba-za-la-wa-er-mi)? He is a Mongol prince, and like other imperial members, he had a very Buddhist name (Tibetan or Sanskrit). I think 把匝剌 must be "vajra" but I don't know what wa-er-mi (varmi?) means. --Nanshu 01:51, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion- Talk

In case you are interested. --Juan Muslim 06:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikiportal

Hi all. I hope you know about Portal:Buddhism. It is being discussed whether the portal should be deleted because it doesn't satisfy certain requirements, because not much work has been done on it. Please see the discussion here. I request you to please contribute and make the portal survive. Thanks. deeptrivia (talk) 04:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion

Please comment: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Religion#interreligious --Striver 05:13, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Improvement drive

Meditation is currently nominated on WP:IDRIVE. If you want to see it improved and could help us bring it up to featured standard, please vote for it here! --Fenice 08:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Comparative Religions Template

Please visit this template I'm working on to go at the bottom of all of the major religious pages as a way to facilitate comparative religion research. Leave your comments on its talk page. Thanks! --Mareino 01:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

{{Buddhism portal}}

Please put on important articles. deeptrivia (talk) 17:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Buddhism in Afghanistan

This article is a stub. There's a long history of Buddhism in Afghanistan. Please take a look. deeptrivia (talk) 03:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

every think about organizing the buddhism cat?

Place is a mess. I tried cleaning some but it's so big.--Dangerous-Boy 11:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:Indian Philosophy

Please fill the Buddhist Philosophy section with more details. I think we'll need to restrict it to Buddhist philosophy developed in India. deeptrivia (talk) 15:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

That would be a quite arbitrary & artificial restriction. Peter jackson 15:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikibuddhist.

Hi, i am starting a project to create a new wiki for buddhists. please sign your name on my userpage if you wish to help. will only create site if enough people are interested. Pure inuyasha 23:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Buddhism

Wow! This is a quiet corner of wikipedia. I was wondering if we can all work together in getting Portal:Buddhism the featured portal status. deeptrivia (talk) 04:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Fornication

I've recently been updating the article on Fornication, and I'm interested to learn about the Buddhist perspective, which i've left space for. Is it possible for someone here to write a paragraph or two?? A J Hay 07:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

A place to start might be Maurice Walshe's "Buddhism and Sex" BPS Wheel article posted on accesstoinsight.org at: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/walshe/wheel225.html. (Walshe is probably most famous for his translation of the Digha Nikaya.) [It's on my to-read list but I figured, given its author, publisher and hosting website, it's probably pretty good :-) ] LarryR 00:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0

Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team for Wikipedia 1.0 would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in a small CD release due to their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 0.5 and later versions. Hopefully it will help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please add to the Buddhism WikiProject article table any articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist automatically for you, please contact us. Please feel free to post your suggestions right here. Thanks! Walkerma 06:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Help needed with problematic article (Phende)

I stumbled across this article by accident and found it to be very problematic with regards to sourcing, POV, grammar, etc. I made a few attempts to fix some obvious problems but a great deal of work remains just to meet Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. It's even possible this article may need to be deleted; I just don't know enough about Buddhism. My edits were purely from the viewpoint of what appeared to violate Wikipedia rules and guidelines. I don't have the time or knowledge to keep working on this.

I also noticed that the article's author had a history of submitting other problematic material (for instance American Buddha Online Library).

This article needs a review by someone familiar with the topic. I have left some additional comments on the article's talk page.
Thanks,
--A. B. 14:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

FYI, I just noticed another article, Ngor, linked to the Phende article that seems to share the same style and the same problems.--A. B. 18:42, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

How do I join.

Just maybe five minutes ago I decided I was a Buddhist. So I would like to join the WikiProject. How might I do this? Zazaban 05:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Couple of questions

Hi, regarding the category Buddhist myths: If I may say so, for me, the word mythical is very close to fairy tales and fantasy; when things fall in that category, I would not call them Buddhism. There are however aspect like you mentioned that are difficult for ordinary people to directly experience - but so is the backside of the moon. All in all, Buddhist mythology is for me almost a contradiction in terms.

Regarding a page for people in Buddhism: who needs that, and do you want to add a few, dozens, or hundreds of names? Of course Buddhist Teachers is a very valid sectionrudy 11:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you about Category:Buddhist mythology. I have long maintained that it should only be applied to fairy tales and such that are in some way related to Buddhism.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 18:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

religioustolerance dot org

I came across over 700 links to this organization, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. The site has a ton of ads but on the other hand, it has content (and a Wikipedia article).

Normally, such an ad-intensive site with so many links gets attention at WikiProject Spam for further investigation. Even if it's not spam, many links may often get deleted as not meeting the external links guideline. I've left a note at WikiProject Spam asking others to look at some of these and see what they think.

Even some non-profit organizations will add dozens of links to Wikipedia since links in Wikipedia are heavily weighted in Google's page ranking systems. (If interested, see the article on Spamdexing for more on this).

You can see all the links by going to this this "Search web links" page. I encourage you to look at Wikipedia's external links guideline then look at the links in the articles you normally watch. Also, if you don't mind, please also weigh in at WikiProject Spam with your opinions. If you see links to pages that you don't think add additional value beyond the content already in an article, feel free to delete them, but please don't go mindlessly deleting dozens of links. (Per WP:EL, links that don't add additional value should be deleted but that doesn't necessarily mean they're "spam").

Thanks for your help and for providing some second opinions. --A. B. 17:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Lerab Ling and related articles

I am crossposting this to WikiProject Tibetan Buddhism, but I thought I might get more response here. I was looking at random articles today and came across Lerab Ling, whose text struck me as something that could have been lifted directly from a promotional brochure. Following the links, I discovered Sogyal Rinpoche and The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, both of which are even more promotional. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is exceptionally bad; the first words of the article describe the book as "an acclaimed spiritual masterpiece," and glowing celebrity reviews are interspersed with statements like, "This jewel of Tibetan wisdom is the definitive spiritual classic for our time." In his article, Sogyal Rinpoche is described as "one of the most renowned teachers of our time" and "the author of the highly-acclaimed and ground breaking book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I have no idea how much influence Lerab Ling, Sogyal Rinpoche, and his book really have in Tibetan Buddhism, so I was hoping that someone more familiar with the topic could take a look at these articles and evaluate the truth of these glowing statements. In the meantime, I've marked all three with {{advert}} tags. Thanks. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 18:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Nice catches AdelaMae! A minor tangent, if I may: If The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is possibly going to be deleted, should it perhaps be subsequently made into a #REDIRECT for Bardo_Thodol? LarryR 22:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC) P.S. Whoops! My bad. My wife (who has a Vajrayanic practice) tells me that this Sogyal Rinpoche book is not the same as the Bardo Thodol (which was classically translated as "Tibetan Book of the Dead"). Please ignore yet another example of my vast ignorance. LarryR 16:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Religious leaders

The current organization there is abit muddled, and needs some discussing how to deal with. A general proposal for cleaning it up is posted at Category talk:Religious leaders#Organization proposal, and more input would be great. It doesn't address the issue of Religious leaders/religious workers/religious figures, but that is another issue that exists. Badbilltucker 21:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Assessment

I have noted that this project does not yet engage in assessment. I am a member of WikiProject Religion, which does engage in assessments. I was wondering if this project would have any objections to the Religion project setting up its banner in a way similar to WikiProject Australia, WikiProject Military history, and others, which have the "parent" banner on top with the assessment criteria and a section below indicating which particular projects have specific interest in the article. I could set up the Religion banner in a way to accomplish this. However, given the complexity involved, I would not want to do so and have things changed back later. Please inform me if this arrangement would be to your satisfaction or not, so I can know how to proceed. Thank you. Badbilltucker 14:55, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this Badbill. NinaEliza (talk • contribs • logs) 22:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Renaming some articles

We need to start renaming or redirecting some articles of both people and concepts for clarity and common usage. If someone goes by a nickname, for example, it's most appropriate to have a redirect of that nickname. This is particularly true for honorifics.

For example, Nichiren is often called Nichiren Daishonin by his followers. A redirect to Nichiren would be in order (if it has not been done already). I propose we start a list of articles that need these redirects/renamings. Larry has kindly offered to help, and he has a lot of energy.

On a side note, the one time I looked at Nichiren, it didn't include his writings on the game Go, and a host of other things. I'm entreating others to look into it - I'm too cl ose to the topic. NinaEliza (talk • contribs • logs) 22:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

As NinaEliza indicates, I do second this effort. The thing that's troubled me lately (and I've perpetrated this problem myself multiple times) is the non-English-naming of articles on Buddhist terms and concepts, such as Sravaka ("disciple"), Upasaka ("lay follower"??), Upadana ("clinging") and even my beloved Skandha ("aggregate"?). Admittedly, this makes sense for some concepts (e.g., Nirvana, buddha), but I think it would be of benefit to have lesser-known terms have their "Main" articles using English titles. Any thoughts? Am I embarrassing myself yet again by rehashing something that was already discussed, decided and implement? (If so, humble apologies yet again :-( ). Metta, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 00:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Belated response. THe general WP preference is for English. However, some terms don't have a standard translation, in which case the original might be commoner than any one translation. Peter jackson 15:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Guess it's tricky. Relatedly, User:munge pointed out on Talk:Sravaka that using an English term for a non-English word also causes the loss of textual context opening the article up for a variety of unforeseen additions. Okay, guess I won't pursue this after all :-) Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion

The group indicated above was recently revitalized for, among other things, the purpose of working on those articles whose content is such that the article does not fall within the scope of any particular denomination. To most effectively do this, however, we would benefit greatly if there were at least one member from this Project working on those articles. On that basis, I would encourage and welcome any member of this Project willing to work on those articles to join the Religion WikiProject. Thank you. Badbilltucker 22:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Japanese Buddhism

It has been proposed elsewhere that Japanese Buddhism be counted as a separate specific entity, particularly because of the inclusion of many ideas and practices which seem to have been used in Shinto as well. Would the members of this project object if articles relating specifically and only to Japanese Buddhism were to be overseen by either the Shinto or Japanese mythology WikiProject as well, given its status as a kind of syncretion of Buddhism and Shinto/Japanese mythology? Badbilltucker 20:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Buddhist art up for featured article review

Buddhist art has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Green451 18:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Buddhist Images

An editor has proposed deleting the article Buddhist Images. Fg2 01:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Citations

I think it's clear from Wikipedia: Attribution that articles about Buddhism should be citing scholars, not Buddhists, except when they're specifically talking about the teachings of a particular person or organization. Peter jackson 09:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Peter, does that mean that for citations on Christianity, only non-christian scholars are acceptable? Geshes are considered Buddhist scholars, what about them? Is His Holiness the Dalai Lama an unacceptable source? rudy 09:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The question is, which hat are they wearing? The criteria given in the guidelines are basically referred to the publisher. Thus Nanamoli's books published by the Pali Text Society are proper sources to cite, because that's a recognized learned society, but his books published by the Buddhist Publication Society should be treated with caution, as it's a Buddhist propaganda organization, "promotional" as the guidelines say. The Dalai Lama's writings can obviously be cited in the article about him. Whether they could be cited in the article about Gelugpa depends on whether he is officially the head of it. I did read somewhere that the Ganden Rinpoche is the official head, but this is not my field so that would have to be checked by those who know. I do know there are disputes within the Gelugpa between the Dalai Lama & Kelsang Gyatso, so that article has to be careful about neutrality. Peter jackson 08:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a worthwhile area of examination but I think already too fine a line is being drawn. For instance, while the Buddhist Publication Society (BPS) and the Pali Text Society (PTS) can both be deemed "promotional," this is different from saying that either one of them is "propagandizing." Would you call the BPS publication of the Visuddhimagga or the Abhidhammattha Sangaha less scholarly than the PTS publication of the Dhamma-Sangani? Personally, I find that Bhikkhu Bodhi's BPS introductory analysis is better informed than C. A. F. Rhys David's PTS introduction (perhaps the difference that 80 years of scholarship makes), though I respect and am indebted to both greatly. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 12:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't, but WP is not supposed to be based on my opinions or yours, it's supposed to be objective. That's what the criteria are for. They say citations should be from publishers with a reputation for fact-checking, so that the source doesn't just represent one man & his dog. PTS is promotional in a literal sense, as its official aim is to foster & promote the study of Pali texts, but that's not what it means. It means that organizations that exist to promote a particular point of view should be treated with special suspicion. PTS is not that, but BPS obviously is. The reason why all this is particularly important is that most religious groups are not centralized monolithic organizations like the Roman Catholic Church with clearly defined official teachings. This is particularly so in the East, where the Western concept of a denomination as something with a central organization doesn't really apply. [1] Buddhist traditions are therefore quite amorphous, including a range of views. Everyone tends to think their view is the real thing, & say so, so their statements that Buddhism/Theravada/... teaches such & such cannot be trusted. Therefore such statements must be backed up by scholars who've studied more widely & objectively. Peter jackson 09:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think we can agree on a couple of points: your and my opinion should not be taken as guidance for judgment here; traditionally trained Western "scholars" (and it might be worth hammering out a definition of what a "scholar" is) have studied more "widely" (though not necessarily "deeply"), in general, than those not so trained; fact-checking is a good thing.... I'm not sure how fruitful this all is. I suspect you and I (and our dogs?) could find what might be deemed "propaganda" and "factual errors" in both PTS and BPS publications. I think it depends on what kind of information we're talking about — for instance, Buddhist history vs. Buddhist practice — and in regards to what particular text (such as, for instance, T.W.Rhys Davids' seemingly POV article on Buddhism in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica or anything else). I think most WP readers/editors know to apply critical thinking to all sources and that such is appropriate.

I guess I see two ways of making this thread productive:

(a) Is there a way for us to discuss to what degree "scholarly knowledge" vs. "practice knowledge" have their place in particular WP Buddhism articles?

(b) I'm wondering if there's a particular article or set of articles that precipitated the generalization that started this thread and, if so, might it be worth discussing the particulars of that article (those articles)?

Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 13:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

No particular article (to start at the end). I find this sort of thing all over the place, either no citation at all or only one from Buddhist sources. I noted some time ago on the Theravada talk page that nearly all the references were to Buddhist sources. The other day I deleted a couple from the text of the article. One of them described Bhikkhu Bodhi as a Theravada spokesman. Rubbish. There's no such thing as a Theravada spokesman because there's no central organization to appoint one. He could reasonably be called a spokesman for the BPS, as its President, if that's any good, & maybe he's been appointed as spokesman for some other organization, but otherwise he's just one monk among many, with his own opinions.

A particular example on which we may be able to clarify ideas. Most Western books on Buddhism start their explanation of its teachings with the 4 Noble Truths, & this has been adopted in Ceylon, where they teach them to children in Sunday schools. However, the scriptural & traditional approach is that they are an advanced teaching for those who are ready ((New) Penguin Handbook of Living Religions). This is an example where books by Westerners or Westernized orientals can give a quite misleading picture of the tradition.

To stick to Theravada, which I know something about. As I said, there's no central organization. That is, on a permanent basis. There was of course the Sixth Council, but as far as I know that did nothing but recite the scriptures, so we might say they are the only official teaching of Theravada as a whole. Then there are various national organizations. In Burma there is a central organization of some sort, & it recommended U Thittila as a contributor to The Path of the Buddha by Morgan, so that chapter can provisionally be regarded as official Burmese Buddhism (the book also contains similarly official accounts from the largest Zen, Pure Land & Nichiren organizations in Japan). There is a central organization in Thailand, but I suspect there's probably not much of one in Ceylon. In both countries the Western interpretation has been largely adopted by the establishment (see the citation from JIABS I put in Theravada & Pali Canon), so perhaps one can use Western accounts backwards to describe oficial Buddhism there. To go further of course there are all sorts of movements within each country, so there are Westernized Buddhists in Burma & un-Westernized ones in Ceylon & Thailand, and endless individual variations.

So what I'm saying is that it's extremely difficult to find out how widely what some Buddhist writer says is accepted. We need scholars to tell us that. Then we know which articles they belong in. Peter jackson 15:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm coming in in the middle of this discussion, but --

- "I think most WP readers/editors know to apply critical thinking to all sources" -- I sure don't see this, myself! IMHO, there are a lot of completely uncritical, credulous people using Wikipedia.

- IMHO "practice knowledge" is not appropriate for Wikipedia, except insofar as quoted as "So-and-so's unverified opinion". The standard for Wikipedia is verifiability, no original research, and reliable sources. Wikipedia:Attribution

- I'm strongly opposed to ruling out the citing of particular persons, publishers or schools across the board. We should consider the inclusion of any assertion on its individual merits. When Joe Crazy-man shouts "Fire!", or says "Lunch is ready now", he may well be right, regardless of what other goofy ideas he has.

-- Writtenonsand 15:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't suggest ruling anyone out altogether, but things must be looked at in proper context. There are a lot of completely uncritical, credulous people putting material into Wikipedia. we have to try to moderate that with proper checking. Peter jackson 15:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Peter, I think in general I can agree with just about everything you've written in your response and, as usual, let me thank for the additional extra information you've provided about Theravada countries. (Perhaps sometime, if not here then on your user page, you could clue us in to your background and how you have accumulated this impressive store of information.) I obviously took umbrage at the general comparison between PTS and BPS -- after all, I use some BPS sources in the articles I've edited/created -- but, realistically, I could see how one could argue your point. The fact that there is so much mayhem occurring on WP Buddhism articles and a real need for our continued contributions, I'm disinclined to disagree with you any further here.

Writtenonsand -- and I really like your user name, by the way, very appropriate for WP -- you are correct on calling me regarding my overly optimistic generalization about critical thinking. A few moments away from the keyboard I regretted writing such, as Peter might say, rubbish. Further, while my choice of the term "practice knowledge" was perhaps a poor choice of wording, I do think what I was alluding to is something real and valuable. While I definitely defer to "scholars" regarding Buddhist history, etc., there are some topics -- for instance, perhaps, practice topics -- that fall outside the scope of most scholarship but have been extensively commented on by some widely recognized "teachers" or "scholar monks," etc. Thus, for instance, in the absence of traditional Western scholarship, I think I've twice resorted to citing publicly available "dharma talks" in one or two articles. If you'd like to explore this further, perhaps as a backburner item, I'd be happy to.

I wish you both the best, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 18:22, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

There is a place for gap-filling. If we have no adequate scholarly information, either because there isn't any or because we haven't come across it, it's perfectly OK to say "One interpretation is ..." or "Some Buddhists believe ..." or "The Dalai Lama says ...", but such qualifying phrases are essential. Peter jackson 11:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

From my experience with some of the Buddhism articles, I feel we need to make a clear distinction between two kinds of citations -- the research done by scholars who may not necessarily have experience in any Buddhist tradition, and the views of well-known Buddhists. Not that either of two should be considered right or wrong. But besides knowing what scholars say, it is equally interesting to know views and philosophies are held by the actual Buddhist traditions. Especially when scholars without sufficient experience in Buddhist practice write about Buddhist philosophy and comparison between traditions, it can sometimes be misleading. Of course they can't be ignored, following WP policy regarding sources, but perhaps we could try to distinguish between the two different kinds of perspectices. --Knverma 09:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that in practice scholars often talk nonsense, but then so do Buddhist teachers. I repeat that what the latter say is evidence only of what they themselves teach, unless they are officially appointed spokespeople of particular organizations. WP is supposed to be based on verifiable statements. That means we have to be careful about exactly what we're saying. We can say that the Dalai Lama says such & such & cite his own writings to that effect. But what do we actually mean when we say Buddhism/Theravada/... says something? We can cite scholars to that effect, provisionally, without knowing exactly what it means. But there is something of a hierarchy among scholarly authorities, which can be quite hard to find. The guidelines say the best authorities are publications by universities. Are all universities equal for these purposes? I'd guess not: would WP be required to treat as serious scholarship the publications of fundamentalist universities like Bob Jones, or Indian universities that do degrees in astrology? Again, I'd guess not. According to a recent survey, the best universities are, in order, Harvard, Cambridge & Oxford. I don't know of a general book on Buddhism from Harvard, so the best authorities to start with would be Harvey (Cambridge) & Gethin (Oxford). However, there are other criteria to take into account. Specialization is an important one: the closer the scholar is to the subject, the more they are relying on their own knowledge rather than trying to keep track of other people's research, the better an authority they are. Date is also important of course. Trying to find out whether there is a consensus can be hard. Peter jackson 09:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm gonna toss in another two cents, especially because I have been given a little (just a little) more thought to the matter of Bhikkhu Bodhi. If I may be straightforward, the intent of these comments are not meant to be adversarial but exploratory (and hopefully not a complete waste of WP bytes).

Peter, you wrote about Bodhi: "He could reasonably be called a spokesman for the BPS, as its President, if that's any good, & maybe he's been appointed as spokesman for some other organization, but otherwise he's just one monk among many, with his own opinions." I think it is important to also recognize, among other things, that Bodhi has a Ph.D. in philosophy and has also made significant contributions to Buddhist scholarship editing BPS books that even (non-Buddhist?) scholars such as Gethin references. So, how do we place someone like Bodhi or, for another potentially complex example, Trungpa Rinpoche (who studied Comparative Religion at Oxford, etc.) in the hierarchy of scholarship? Perhaps a matrix could be created: publication, author's credentials, year of publication, citations of work in scholarly journals....

Additionally, you've identified a survey that lists the best universities as Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge; can we readily extrapolate from such surveys that these are the best universities for Buddhist scholarship or Buddhist scholarly publications? (Maybe a pointer to this survey would help?)

Also, as others have pointed out, experiential wisdom is important to certain types of Buddhist discourse. For instance, it would make sense to me that someone writing on metta has actually practiced it deeply for a long period of time. Otherwise, they are just intellectually mapping their own words from the words of others which, prima facie, is rife with problems. Thus, for me (yes, launch the rotten tomatoes now), in such a matrix as mentioned above, "exposure to Buddhism" (quality, type), would also seem relevant.

Thanks for any feedback. (Extra points for those who use a non-condescending tone of voice :-) ) Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Bodhi's translations of the Majjhima (actually his revision of Nanamoli) & Samyutta have been issued in private editions by the PTS, which gives them scholarly authority in their own right. There is something in the guidelines about non-peer-reviewed publications by recognized scholars, which would have a lesser authority. Also, it seems to me logical that, if you can find a reputable publication that says that so-and-so gives an accurate account of such-and-such, then you can give the latter as a source, along with the review or whatever. It's true that the best universities overall may not be such in every subject, which adds complications. However, that is not so relevant to what I actually said. In fact neither Harvey nor Gethin is actually stationed at the university that published his book. What WP is about here is peer review. Camridge University Press, for example, sends every proposed book to two experts for comment, and a third if they disagree. The experts need not be at Cambridge. On your last paragraph, WP is about facts, not wisdom. your point about rephrasing is important. The guidelines say statements should be easily verifiable, which I think must mean minimally rephrased, only (ideally) as far as necessary to avoid copyright infringement. Peter jackson 09:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Peter - Thanks for the very prompt, thoughtful and helpful response. Frankly, I'm going to hold off on making future WP edits until I re-read and more fully digest Wikipedia:Attribution, per your pointer. (FWIW, in particular, I want to more fully understand what it says about uses of the Bible and see how that might pertain to our references to and quotes from the Pali Canon.)

If I may, the only part of your response with which I personally have any intuitive reluctance is the use of the word "fact." Hoping you don't mind if I wordsmith a wee, I think a phrase along the lines of "documenting contemporary scholarly consensus" might be more accurate. (For instance, to use a classic non-Buddhist example, a circa 1900 A.D. WP article on physics would document Newtonian physics not the writings of then-patent-officer Einstein, though the latter would be closer to the facts at hand.) I think both the effort to capture scholarly consensus and what we've momentarily referred to as "experiential wisdom" are both efforts to write down "the truth." Regardless, as you have very appropriately and repeatedly maintained, this is the WP playground, the rules are posted on the fence, and if one wants to play here they need to abide by the rules. Thanks again for your clarity and persistence regarding this.

Best wishes, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 12:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the use of the term fact is odd, but that seems to be the WP usage. What the attribution page says about the Bible doesn't seem to be thought out: it treats the gospels as an unquestioned record of the words of Jesus, and only raises questions as to the interpretation. This is inappropriate there & even more so for the Pali Canon. We mustn't say that the Buddha said such-and-such, because there's no scholarly consensus. We might sometimes say that most scholars think he said something of the sort, but that would have to be checked. Apart from this, the interpretation question is important too. People tend to quote passages from the Pali canon (or the Bible) that seem to fit their own ideas. Peter jackson 10:08, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Solely for the sake of precision, the proposed-policy article Wikipedia:Attribution states:

...How reliable a source is depends on context. In general, the most reliable sources are books and journals published by universities; mainstream newspapers; and magazines and journals that are published by known publishing houses....

For me, in our on-going discussion here, the phrases "depends on context" and "in general" are important. For example, year of publication (e.g., in regards to an academic publication) and scholarly citations (e.g., in regards to a non-academic publication) could be relevant to assessing a publication's reliability. I think it is useful to keep in mind the general rules (secondary sources, university presses, etc.) but it is also in the best interest of Wikipedia to thoughtfully use other sources.

In the end, I don't think what I write here is necessarily at odds with what Peter has written, for instance, Peter, when you wrote:

"Thus Nanamoli's books published by the Pali Text Society are proper sources to cite, because that's a recognized learned society, but his books published by the Buddhist Publication Society should be treated with caution, as it's a Buddhist propaganda organization, 'promotional' as the guidelines say."

I think my choice of words would have been significantly different (as indicated above) but, ultimately, in general, I think we could likely reach agreement on what sources are "reliable" and/or appropriately contextualized for a particular article. (Is this my unfounded optimism rearing its head again?)

Tangentially, Peter (and others), I'm honestly wondering about publications such as Nanamoli's Visuddhimagga in terms of to what degree it is a "(translated) primary source" and to what degree it is a "secondary source." Do you have a take on this? Thanks, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 17:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

There are two different questions here. First, is it an authoritative translation? In that particular case, it does not derive authority from its publishers, but a number of scholars speak favourably of it in reputable publications, which gives it indirect authority. In theory, such reviews should be cited along with any citation of the translation. The other is, how authoritative is the text? There's an old saying that you can prove anything from the Bible, and this would apply to Buddhist scriptures as well. We should be wary of picking quotations out of them & saying Budhism teaches this. In a sense this may be so, but it can be very misleading out of context. On the actual terminology of primary & secondary sources in the WP sense, I assume that any book would be primary evidence of the beliefs of its author, so one could cite the Visuddhimagga for Buddhaghosa, but not the scriptures for the Buddha as their authorship is uncertain. Peter jackson 10:52, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Excellent points. Thanks for the additional analysis. If I may ask another set of related questions: How does one ascertain the "editorial oversight or fact-checking policy" (to use a phrase from Wikipedia:Attribution) of a publisher such as PTS or BPS? Do we simply write the publisher and trust their response or are there superior/alternative methods? Thanks again, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 11:49, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Good question. It strikes me that finding out whether a source has a reputation for checking might often be as difficult as actually checking the facts in the first place, if not more so. Does the fact that X has a reputation for fact checking appear in a reputable source itself? If so, what about that one ... ? Peter jackson 15:16, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

:-) FWIW, I posted a query about this on the WP:ATT talk page. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Transliteration

I'd like to remind people that many computers will not display some of the diacritic letters used for Pali and Sanskrit. Therefore I recommend both pointed and unpointed versions be given at first occurrence. For a different reason we should give both Pinyin & WG, & preferably tones & characters as well. As an aside, is it correct for us to be using Pinyin as primary? Last I heard most scholars used WG, but it's not my field so I may be out of date. Peter jackson 09:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Prebish & Keown (Introducing Buddhism) say specialists have adopted Pinyin, which answers my aside. Peter jackson 10:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Monastic naming conventions

Just to draw attention to a problem. In Burma, a monk may have various names. Thus Nanabhivamsa, Maha Dhamma Kyinthan & (1st) Maungdaung Sayadaw are the same. Peter jackson 09:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Creating a guideline that applies to all religous articles

Please discuss this in a discussion here--Sefringle 03:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Mandarava

Hello. I recently found Mandarava in the backlog of uncategorized articles. As I don't know anything about Buddhism, I'm afraid the categories I put might be incorrect and I'd appreciate it if someone from the project could take a look. Thanks. Pascal.Tesson 23:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

New project proposal

There is a new WikiProject task force proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Inter-religious content that is being proposed to deal specifically with articles whose content relates to several religious traditions. Any editors interested in joining such a group would be more than welcome to indicate their interest there. John Carter 15:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Pali names for disciples

Hi there. I think we should change to using Pali for the names of the Buddha's disciples, such as Sariputta, Mahamoggallana instead of Sanskrit. I believe this is appropraite, because Theravada seems to put a lot more emphasis on the disciples of the Buddha and their ineractions with the Buddha, rather than eg, Mahayana, which focuses more on Avalokiteshvara, Ksitigarbha, among other things. And since Theravada used Pali, I would recommend Pali. I tend to find that Mahayana books tend not to discuss the disciples as much, so Pali usage seems predominant. Comments? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point. As I undersand it, WP policy is to use the form commonest in English. Given the point you make, that might well be Pali. Peter jackson 10:26, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I am undecided and on the fence. It seems to me that the convention in speaking about Buddhism in English is to use Sanskrit, unless the subject is associated very strongly in with Theravada to the exclusion of Mahayana. But the names of the major disciples seem to be a borderline case, since they clearly have a more central position in Theravada thought, but, on the other hand, they are not absent from Mahayana, either. Some are more important in Mahayana than others, too. I find it difficult to reach a clear conclusion.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 03:58, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Improving article

Eastern religion is currently being improved. Please help bring this central topic article up to standard. Vassyana 03:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Buddhist ethics

The Buddhist ethics article is in very rough shape; it needs to be rewritten by someone with enough background in the topic to give it some sort of focus, not to mention the fact that it is missing a lot of references and occasionally doing a poor job of identifying when different branches of Buddhism are in disagreement over a topic. Any additions and clarifications would be an improvement. --Clay Collier 23:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

"Mythology" a point-of-view?

I have listed the following articles from the "Buddhist Mythology category" at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Religion#List_of_articles_where_mythology_cats_are_potentially_problematic

• Shambhala - because this kingdom is mentioned in the Tantras, sacred scriptures to some sects of Buddhism with many devout believers. Scholars may disagree as to its historic identity, but since we are not supposed to side with one POV against another, we should distinguish between sacred scriptures that significant numbers believe in, and "mythology" which is not neutral when applied to current beliefs of any given world view. "Mythology" should be reserved for writings that are no longer widely believed in the world by anyone, like the works of Greek or Norse mythology.
• Kinnara - again, this is mentioned in the Lotus Sutra, a sacred text to millions of people, and is part of the belief structure of some sects of Buddhism, whether we like it or not. Thus, we should avoid sticking a pejorative label on it like "mythology", because that is a POV not shared by those who have this belief. Regards, Blockinblox 13:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Nīlakantha dhāranī

I've just revised The Great Compassion Mantra, can someone go and check it. Blind Man Walking 01:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Laszlo Forizs

Laszlo Forizs, a Hungarian translator of Buddhist literature, is up for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laszlo Forizs. The AfD could possibly use expertise from someone familiar with Buddhism, since many of us already participating in the discussion there are far from expert on the topic.

On a related note, have you considered setting up and watching a Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting page for Buddhism? The other major religions have one and it would be a convenient place to leave such notifications. On the other hand, I don't think it would do much good for it to be set up by a disinterested outsider such as myself, and possibly Buddhism attracts few enough AfDs that it wouldn't be worth your time...just a suggestion, anyway. —David Eppstein 05:18, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Zen merger

It was proposed in September 2006 that Zen Teacher/Zen Master be merged into Zen, but no discussion was made of it. If you are interested, please discuss here. JohnnyMrNinja 17:55, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Greco-Buddhism FAR

Greco-Buddhism has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here..Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Pinyin

According to the general WP guidelines, names of articles should follow the common English-language usage. This will not necessarily be Pinyin. Peter jackson 16:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Bodhi

I know I'm not in the project, but it seems like Bodhi should be rated as start class. --MKnight9989 13:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dharmic religion

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dharmic religion and Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_September_2#Category:Dharmic_religions . You may be interested to vote or leave your comments there. Andries 17:45, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Buddhism and Hinduism

I'd like to get some more eyes and brains involved in this article- there are a number of problems with it regarding accurately depicting the variety of perspectives on the relationship between Buddhism & and Hinduism, as well as a recent dispute over how to incorporate views of Buddhism that emphasize its decent from the Hindu tradition. Myself, Arrow740, and Rebel XTi have been going round and round for a bit, and I believe we're at the point where repeated reverting is blocking progress on the article. --Clay Collier 08:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Assessment

I am in the process of trying to assess many of the articles relating to Buddhism, and at least placing the banners on the others. I have also followed the procedure I have seen elsewhere where any article which is linked to as "see also: X" in the main Buddhism article is accorded "Top" importance to the project. I think the way importance is indicated on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Assessment page might work here as well. In any event it would probably be a good idea if a more knowledgable member of the project were to try to maybe finish the "Top" and "High" importance categories. Also, I was wondering whether, given the widely disparate nature of many of the types of Buddhism, whether it might be a good idea to create specific task forces which related to the larger "groupings" in Buddhism. Anyway, just letting you know. John Carter 20:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all your efforts in this neglected area of Buddhism on WP, John. It looks like the Wikiproject Buddhism template does not currently display importance assessments- if someone out there is a Template markup guru and wants to adapt the current template, it would make it easier to see at a glance how articles are being assessed. --Clay Collier 21:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I've at least placed the project tag on all the articles. Unfortunately, there were several articles that seemed to me to fall on the Stub-Start or Start-B borderline, or were such that I personally didn't know enough about them one way or another to even attempt an assessment. In those cases, they weren't assessed. Many of these articles are on the Start-B cusp, and it might be worth the effort of a more informed member of the project to take a shot at assessing them. John Carter 14:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Anthologies

These should be listed in the narrowest appropriate article (see how I've done it in Pali Canon). This means everything occurs just once, avoiding clutter, & also avoids the necessity for personal opinions on which books are good/useful/important/..., so is NPOV. Peter jackson 08:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Prayer in Buddhism

IMHO the article on Prayer, section Buddhism [2], while not bad, could use some tweaking. I believe that others are more competent to do this work than I am. -- 201.19.77.39 09:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Added link to to Samanera in the article Shramana. Merge?

I added a "See also" link to Samanera in the article Shramana. We may want to merge Samanera into Shramana. Discussion? -- 201.19.77.39 13:03, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

They're not the same thing. A samanera is a Buddhist novice, not a full monk. A shramana is roughly any Indian monk-type person of any religion. Peter jackson 08:47, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Peter, no merge. Greetings, Sacca 09:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarification. -- 201.19.77.39 13:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Bhikkhu needs more info about Theravada and Mahayana

Bhikkhu currently has a good deal of information about the Vajrayana, and little about the Theravada and (other) Mahayana. -- 201.19.77.39 13:46, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Early Buddhism

I know of the following scholarly theories:

• standard model, followed by most scholars: Buddhism started off unified, but split into 2 schools in the 4th or 3rd century BC, & later into more; large overlap of vinaya & sutta between schools largely due to inheritance from early period; for the early period i know of 2 subtheories:

• • Gombrich & a few others[3]: the above shared material is substantially the teaching of the Buddha
  • Nakamura (Indian Buddhism, Hirakata City, Japan, 1980; reprinted Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1987, 1989), Ui & some other Japanese, & perhaps some Westerners (? Gomez, Vetter, Bronkhorst): Atthaka, Parayana & little or nothing else go back to the Buddha's lifetime; after his death Buddhism evolved into "fairly different" form found in shared material above

• Schopen (Journal of the Pali Text Society, vol XVI, p 105) argues that the standard model is roughly the opposite of the truth: in fact, he argues, Buddhism started off extremely diverse & was gradually levelled off over centuries, eventually coalescing into a small number of fairly similar organized schools (apparently in the 2nd century AD, though he doesn't say so explicitly)

So lots of stuff in lots of articles is theory, not fact. Also, the concept of POV fork may be relevant. Peter jackson 10:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Conversion

I am curious about conversions to Buddhism. From what I hear, there are no conversions. One simply chooses to believe, and to follow the path the philosophy sets out, and is therefore a Buddhist. I am curious if this is true, and how it plays out across the various branches of Buddhism. This could be a great thing to include in the Buddhism article, or elsewhere. Thanks. LordAmeth 22:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

In what way does that differ from conversion? Peter jackson 09:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It differs in the sense that the Abrahamic religions, and likely many others, require formal conversion ceremonies, and can have pretty serious requirements attached to them. One does not become a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim by simply waking up one day and deciding that one now believes in X, Y, and Z; one has to speak with the priest, minister, rabbi, or imam and go through a whole series of steps towards formally officially becoming a member of that faith. This is why I ask about Buddhist conversion practices - are there rituals? are there requirements that must be fulfilled before being considered a member of the faith? do these differ by sect/branch, or by country? ... It would be an interesting thing to add to the article if there is anything to it. LordAmeth 22:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

There is aritual of taking the refuges, which is in the Buddhism article. Peter jackson 10:24, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

To become a buddhist in Theravada tradition requires: undertaking the 5 precepts, and taking the tree refuges (refuge in the three jewels). Then, one is a follower of Buddha's Dhamma. The Mahayana tradition requires additional things, I don't know exactly what, but in early Buddhism it's quite simple. Undertaking this little ceremony can be done in 5 minutes, and the ceremony itself is not terribly important, in the end one's actions are much more important. Many Buddhists cannot handle the 5 precepts, it's too difficult for them so they do only 3 or 4 (no alcohol, no lying are most difficult for many) but they still regard themselves as Buddhists. Greetings, Sacca 09:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, Upasaka#Initiation_ceremonies has some new, sparse information, based on Kariyawasam's 1995 text on contemporary Sinhala rituals[4] - Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

"8 main Bodhisattva-disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni"?

Snowlion gives a quote from Rudy Harderwijk, The Four Dignities, "Sometimes the throne of a Buddha is depicted with eight Snowlions on it, in this case, they represent the 8 main Bodhisattva-disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha." Are the "8 main Bodhisattva-disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni" listed anywhere on Wikipedia? -- Writtenonsand 14:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Help sought on identifying statues

I've added these five images of Seattle's Kadampa Buddhist Temple to Commons, but I don't know enough to definitively identify any of the statues except the one of the Buddha. If someone can help out, please do. Just edit the descriptions on Commons directly, no need to reply here (although here would be a good place to discuss if you have guesses but don't know definitively, or conversely if you can say you've got it covered.) Thanks in advance. - Jmabel | Talk 05:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

This is an NKT temple? They are a bit different and have different stuff. Image 1 is one of the Taras (think green), Gautama Buddha and Chenrezig. From the yellow hats in 3 I guess they are connected with the Gelug school - maybe Je Tsongkhapa. I think Image 2 may be Dorje Shugden (looking at the images here) which would fit with them being the NKT. I have no idea what the other statues in 2 are. Secretlondon (talk) 23:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Contributions that have quoted rather than re-writing

With Larry’s permission, I’m posting here is a dialogue from our Talk pages. Feel free to join in.Dhammapal 05:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Larry,

I just went through all my contributions and made a list of cases where I have quoted instead of re-writing. <snip>

Bhikkhu Bodhi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upeksa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_in_religion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nekkhamma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism

Thanissaro Bhikkhu Paragraph beginning with “Karma really is happening…” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honesty#Buddhist_teachings_on_honesty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia#Dharmic_Religions

Hellmuth Hecker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananda

Miscellaneous http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangha http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha

A huge amount of work to re-write! A bit overwhelming. Maybe I should check with John Bullitt first about whether it might be OK to quote on Wikipedia.

with metta Dhammapal 21:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dhammapal -

Your intentions are obviously good-hearted and your goal — spreading the Dhamma — is the highest. These are the most important things, at least in my mind.

As for the technical issues, I'll try to look at the items you listed and see if I can help with some re-write/summarizing/paraphrasing in the next few days. If you don't want to wait that long or just are inclined to do something first, you can always just put quote marks around the material you word-for-word copied and then add a reference to the website/text from which you took the quotes. In other words, as long as you indicate the material is a direct word-for-word quote (by placing the material in quotes) and then add an appropriate citation (e.g., author, year [if available], text title and, if appropriate, web site) then there's nothing wrong. (There is some rule about not quoting extensively from a text; I'm not sure what exactly the rule is but I get the impression that one should not take more than two or three long paragraphs ["blockquotes"] from any source.) So while, stylistically, its preferable to summarize/paraphrase, the use of quote marks and appropriate citations is legally acceptable, to the best of my understanding (and decades of doing such).

I hope this helps. If I get more time later tonight or tomorrow, I'ld like to discuss with you further the skillful facts/presentation distinction you wrote about. I think you are right on target and it might be of benefit if we just discuss it a wee more.

I wish you much happiness,
Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 23:03, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dhammapal -

FWIW, over the next hour or so, I'll do a quick review of the WP articles you've identified and attempt to prioritize them in terms of which ones should possibly be addressed first. In doing such, I'll place them in different categories based on to what degree they:

• currently include a citation (e.g., in an end note)
• are currently in quote marks (indicating a word-for-word copy)
• currently make up a significant part of the WP article

Frankly, if the material that was copied does include a citation, is imbedded in marks and does not make up a significant portion of an article, then I'm not sure any action is imperative. (For an example of such a WP article, see the current Upeksa article [which, frankly, I modified in June] — although this article can certainly use expansion!)

Text lacking citations AND quote marks AND comprising a significant amount of a WP article:

• simple:Meditation
• simple:Buddha

Text having citations but lacking quote marks:

• Ananda
• Euthanasia#Dharmic_Religions

Text having citations and quote marks but comprising a majority of an article or Buddhist section or being an excessively large quote:

• Sacca
• Ethics_in_religion#Buddhist_ethics
• simple:Sangha
• simple:Noble Eightfold Path

Text that includes a citation, quote marks and does not make up the majority of an article:

• Upeksa
• Nekkhamma (I worked on this in July too :-) )
• Moral_relativism#Buddhism
• Honesty#Buddhist_teachings_on_honesty

Article(s) you've mentioned where I don't see significant text inserted by you:

• Karma in Buddhism

As time allows, I'll try to look over these (in particular the first eight identified articles), starting at the top, and see if I can help with appropriate changes. (I have to state up front that I am lousy at writing "simple English" — my brain simply is not wired to speak simply; I admit its a deficit.) As we modify the above articles, perhaps we can track the changes here (e.g., simply indicate below or above that an identified article has been changed).

With metta, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dhammapal -

I just completed significant changes to simple:Meditation#Buddhist Meditation -- a significant re-write. Assuming my changes do not get reverted, I strongly believe that that article is now fine (at least in terms of copy-violation concerns). (Please make any changes to my re-write that you think are appropriate, of course. I am not attached to what I wrote there.) I'll cross it off our list above.

Best wishes,
Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 02:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dhammapal -

I've taken a look at the simple:Buddha article and I see you've added two paragraphs:

The important thing is that the Buddha was perfectly enlightened. His mind was completely at peace - completely free of any form of sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair; any form of selfishness or greed or craving or attachment; any form of ill-will, resentment, aversion, hurt feelings, righteous indignation; any form of delusion or ignorance which could lead to doubt and confusion; any form of conceit or any conceiving of a self. His mind was perfectly at peace, abiding in complete knowledge of reality.

If one studies the Buddhist scriptures one will see the Buddha's compassion. He taught the Dhamma to those who wanted to listen, he taught for the sake of their benefit and wellbeing. He wanted to help the listeners and did not want any misfortune to occur to them, no matter who they were. Even shortly before his final passing away he still taught the Dhamma to Subhadda who became the last disciple in the presence of the Buddha himself. This clearly shows his great compassion

The second paragraph appears to be from http://islamnatural.com/buddhist.htm. But I'm having trouble identifying the source of the first paragraph. I see elsewhere you've added "(K.Sujin)" to the first paragraph -- is he perhaps the author? perhaps in printed text? Also did I perhaps miss other verbatim material added to this article? I just ask these various questions because it would help me to know what was taken word-for-word and what was not.

I think I'm going to take a break from this right now, at least until I hear back from you. I hope you are doing well, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 03:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Larry,

What a detailed response! Sadhu! You deserve a well-earned break!

The carpet is being laid but my Dad has kindly moved my computer to another room so I’ll still be online.

Could we move your post onto a discussion page so that we don’t have to go back and forth between our UserTalk pages, and also other people can listen in and contribute?

What about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Buddhism

Thankyou for your confidence that my intentions have been good in my dealings with Wikipedia, particularly Simple English version. I hope my breaking the copyright rules won’t jeopardize my account with Wikipedia. I thought Wikipedia was for free distribution. I have no excuse for not giving citations for some of my favorite Simple English contributions. At least I have documented my contributions now. I’ll take the risk that my work (opps – not my work <smile>) may be deleted.

I’ll try to practice restraint in the future.

With metta Dhammapal 04:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dhammapal -

Feel free to move our discussion to wherever you feel most comfortable.

Frankly, I would not worry that any of this might jeopardize your account, etc. You did something in good faith, now understand that it is not appropriate for WP, and are actively pursuing correcting the situation. Moreover, at this time, each of the articles you have impacted either have a significant amount of other material, or the material that was copied is somehow cited or marked as being a quoted from elsewhere. (The only time I've seen such copying to require administrative action is when an entire article is copied word-for-word from another source with a non-GFDL-compatible license or conditions, as we have seen recently.)

Tangentially, if you could better identify the source of the simple:Buddha material (as I requested above in the immediately preceding post), I'd appreciate it.

I hope you, your family and your home are doing well. With metta, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 05:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dhammapal -

Given the above situation, I've been tinkering around Simple English (e.g., created simple:Template:Buddhism) and saw that you've made significant changes to simple:Buddha and simple:Noble Eightfold Path, addressing the concerns stated above. So, hoping you don't mind, I'll simply cross them off the above to-do list. Good work on your part. Also, I'd like to draw other WP Buddhism editors attention here to the fact that Simple English WP Buddhism can desperately use your help!!! (For instance, start with simple:Category:Buddhism or simple:Template:Buddhism and check out the linked articles -- many core articles are just a few lines long!) Thanks so much, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 18:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Larry,

The simple:Noble Eightfold Path article has temporarily been made a stub, without even a list of the eight path factors. I am also stumped regarding the simple:Sangha page. I only have a children's atlas which has a picture of monks on almsround.Dhammapal 07:34, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I significantly wordsmithed, added references & an old image to simple:Sangha so I believe it is, in a extremely rudimentary way, acceptable at this time. I'll cross it off the above list. Please let me know if you disagree. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 22:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, regrettably, I have nothing comparable to Thanissaro Bhikkhu's eloquence or (obviously) knowledge, but I tried to wordsmith and slightly expand upon the two or three non-consecutive sentences that had been copied from his Parajika (at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc1/ch04.html). So I'll cross off the Euthanasia section (newly renamed Euthanasia#Buddhism) from the above list. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 02:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dhammapal - taking a cue from your own corrective actions, I've simply deleted the potentially problemmatic text from Ananda, copying them to Talk:Ananda for others to consider for possible more-appropriate future use. With metta, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 03:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Larry – simple:Sangha looks great. There is an enhanced edition about Ananda in print that I’ll read once the carpet has been laid. I deleted a lengthy paragraph you posted in Euthanasia and posted a short quote by Thanissaro Bhikkhu from an article about Compassion for the dying at Access to Insight. I hope you find the changes acceptable. Regards Dhammapal 04:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

In the Ethics in religion article, I reduced the multiple paragraphs taken from Bodhi (1994) to one blockquote and provided more general well-known information citing other sources; thus, I'm crossing this to-do off the list. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 18:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

In the Sacca article, the Bodhi (1999) blockquote now takes up less than half the main text. I've expanded the article to mention sacca in terms of the Four Noble Truths (ariya-sacca) and have pulled material from Peter Harvey, Rhys Davids' PTS PED and ATI's John Bullitt. While the Bodhi quote still is large (especially given that his writing is neither canonical nor post-canonical nor otherwise embraced as part of traditional texts), it is at the very end of the article and is, I believe, overshadowed by other material. So, I'm going to cross it off the above list.

While, for reasons of style and scholasticism, it would be beneficial to perhaps expand or clean-up the copied (cited and offset) material from the non-crossed-off articles above, I personally do not assess the copied material in those articles as seriously posing a possible copyvio or GDFL-compliancy concern. So, I will no longer pursue work on the above list at this time. Best wishes, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 19:12, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche needs your help

IMHO the article Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche is quite good but can be improved to "even better".

1) Article needs specific cites for various statements.

2) We could use stub articles for many redlinks relating to Tibetan Buddhism.

3) Article contains various "peacock terms" which need to be made NPOV.

4) Article contains several assertions of more-or-less miraculous events which need to be carefully cited and phrased in a NPOV style.

5) Article may be slightly more detailed than is necessary / appropriate for Wikipedia.

Thanks. -- Writtenonsand 00:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the main issue is that it needs sources unconnected to the subject. Secretlondon (talk) 01:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Empowerment in Tibetan Buddhism

I recently edited the article Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and I see that we need an article on the concept of "empowerment" in Tibetan Buddhism. (E.g., "he received the Rinchen Tangyud empowerments", "Jangchub Dorje gave him empowerments for the Red Tara cycle".) I personally have no idea what this term means, and would like very much to know. The existing article Empowerment is no help at all. I don't even know what would be the best title for our new article. Can anybody start a stub on this? Thanks. -- Writtenonsand 13:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Wang (Tibetan Buddhism)??? -- Writtenonsand 01:02, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes I started that a couple of days ago. Lung is another part of it. Our articles on Tibetan Buddhist practice are not very good currently. Secretlondon 01:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Empowerments give someone permission to perform a certain tantric ritual. Secretlondon 01:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Religion_and_sexuality#Buddhism_and_sexuality

Religion_and_sexuality#Buddhism_and_sexuality could use review and possible cleanup. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 22:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of Buddhism needed: Requested article: Only major religion without a "criticism" page.

We need an article at Criticism of Buddhism parallel to those on all other major religions. Criticism of Buddhism currently has no content and formerly simply redirected to the general article Criticism of religion. Maybe not everybody will be interested in working on this, but IMHO if any religion would be comfortable with NPOV self-criticism, it would be Buddhism.  :-) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:50, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

See also comments at Talk:Criticism_of_religion#Criticism_of_Buddhism -- Writtenonsand (talk) 17:07, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Culture_and_fine_arts#Buddhism

Anybody who doesn't currently do so should check on Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Culture_and_fine_arts#Buddhism from time to time. We should be trying to create redirects for the easy and mis-spelled ones, and the people of this WikiProject are obviously the ones more likely to have a handle on the tough ones. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Three marks of existence needs your help

Three marks of existence needs some work.

• Could use some general cleanup.
• Has no cites! - "Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed."

According to our infobox, the Three Marks of Existence is a "Key Concept" of Buddhism.
And now I see that "Key Concept" links to Buddhist terms and concepts, but that article does not mention Three marks of existence!!
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 22:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal between Indian religion, Eastern religion, and Eastern philosophy

I have proposed a merge of these three articles. Please see Talk:Eastern philosophy#Merger proposal. Zenwhat (talk) 01:45, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Notability

I don't think every Zen Centre in the world is notable - agree? Loads have been added to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Buddhism/Requested_articles, which also seems to duplicate things in the to-do list at the bottom of the project page. Secretlondon (talk) 23:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Per WP:ORG, a Zen Center or other temple would only be notable if it is nationally/internationally recognized (such as Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, and/or written about in reliable third-party sources (San Francisco Zen Center. Chapters of an umbrella organization at best warrant a mention in an article on the association or denomination. I was wondering about things like some of the Pure Land churches in California that have histories going back over 100 years- some of them have been recognized as 'the oldest' this or that in an area and have some history associated with them- the San Jose Buddhist Church in San Jose's Japantown might fall into this category. As a general rule though, random centers, practice groups, temples, etc., probably wouldn't pass muster, as very few of them have anything written about them. --Clay Collier (talk) 00:23, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Generally, yes, we don't need an article on each Buddhist center in the western world. There's no need to proliferate them. That said, a lot of such centers have some sort of marginal claim to fame, viz "one of the first Xs in such-and-such area", or "the first major X is such-and-such area". So, I can see where there would be a good number of marginal cases. A more specific problem is that very few such Buddhist groups have anything written about them in reliable sources, which makes it difficult for us to write about them even if they are deemed notable. That said, I would feel like the grinch trying to delete an article with well-written information about a regionally-important center.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Please vote on how to name the Buddha (general) article

There was a vote and move last fall already, but afterwards we had a very constructive discussion in which we gathered many more facts, and the name Buddha (general) looks less desirable now. We feel it is time to vote again, and we want this to be the final vote, so please take a look at the Talk:Buddha (general)#Table of options, which lists the results of our discussion in a nutshell. — Sebastian 07:44, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Kate Moss

I see that the article on Kate is included in this project. Is that accurate? Wwwhatsup (talk) 16:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed the tag. Wwwhatsup (talk) 15:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Losar

Halo! Losar is currenting happening, how may I ensure that it is flagged as a current event? Is there a News Wiki article that this Wikipedia article can interwiki? How may I progress this? Is there anything else you recommend?
Blessings in the mindstream
B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Brahmajala sutta \ Brahmajala sutra

Can somebody fix this? I'm not particularly knowledgeable, so I'm not exactly sure what should be done.

• Brahmajala Sutra
• Brahmajala Sutta

With the edits I've done to it already, I probably screwed something up, somewhere. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

There are 2 different texts:

• Brahmajala Sutta, in Pali; there are or were versions of this in other languages, including a Sanskrit version called Brahmajala Sutra
• Fanwang Jing, in Chinese, purporting to be a translation from a Sanskrit text called Brahmajala Sutra, a claim rejected by scholars

These 2 texts have no relation to each other. I hope this information will help people sort out what to do with the articles. Peter jackson (talk) 11:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I've tried to rectify some of the worst muddle here, but I suggest:

• abolish Brahmajala Sutta dab; the Pali form is not ambiguous at all
• restore Brahmajala Sutta (Theravada) to Brahmajala Sutta
• perhaps rename Brahmajala Sutra (Mahayana) as Fanwang Jing; this is subject to information from those with more knowledge of the subject as to which form is normally used

Peter jackson (talk) 16:29, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Zen Buddhism in the United States

I am looking for editors to come to my sandbox at User:Mind meal/Sandbox26 to collaborate on creating a first-class article on Zen Buddhism in the United States. Interested parties can contact me on my talk page. I would like to see a group of research-oriented editors come aboard. I think it may work best if various editors focus on one particular dimension of Zen in America (always backed by references) and we can add various sections, come up with section titles, and eventually bring the article to "completion." While this is a labor of love for me, I fear it will take eons to get the article right alone. With the help of other editors, however, we can make progress much faster. Please contact me before starting to edit my sandbox. I want to know the members I am working with before doing so. Thank you. (Mind meal (talk) 19:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC))

Tantras

This article has a tag indicating its affiliation to this project, but is almost entirely about Hindu tantras, with only a few passing references to Buddhist ones. Peter jackson (talk) 12:02, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thoughtform

This article, which appears to relate to the concept of "tulpa" in Tibetan Buddhism has been mentioned on the Fringe Theories noticeboard and is tagged for multiple issues. It seems to me that good sources are an urgent priority for it. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Every Zen Center/temple in the world?

I ran across Zen Center of Syracuse and tagged it for speedy deletion for failing to provide any claims of notability. The creator of the article says that WikiProject Buddhism is planning on creating an article on every Zen Center and temple in the world. Please don't. Every temple in the world is no more notable than every Christian church in the world. Existence is not notability. Corvus cornix_talk 23:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It would appear that the creator is referencing this list of possible articles. I must say, it is stupidly exhaustive. If each and every one of those Zen Centres can assert it's own notability, then go ahead. If not, then I echo Corvux cornix: please don't. _TalkIslander 00:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

There was a discussion on just this subject that is now on the archive page. The consensus was not to add temples or centers that did not have specific claims of notability. --Clay Collier (talk) 02:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The list referred to by Islander was never meant to provide justification for single articles for each center. That article, Zen Buddhism in the United States, is far away from completion and I merely included them all so that I would know possible areas to research. I linked them all on the chance that some would be deserving of their own article, providing a quick way to start the article(s) off. Incidentally, The Zen Center of Syracuse is, imo, notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia. Being that it is led by the first female Rinzai roshi in the USA and is now well referenced, there is no reason this article should face deletion. (Mind meal (talk) 05:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC))

Help Needed: Thoughtform et. al.

There are a number of articles being discussed on the Fringe Theory Noticeboard that could use the attention of someone who is well-versed in Tibetan Buddhism. The articles, most by a single author, appear to mix Tibetan Buddhist, theosophist, and new-age ideas in a way that makes it quite difficult to tell what is going on, and whether or not the entire business is just original research, or actually has a kernel of factual content to it. There are some basic questions about whether or not something is a legitimate/common translation of some terms used in Tibetan Buddhism. --Clay Collier (talk) 02:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, jesus. Could you tell me who this person is? Send me a message on my talkpage. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Monkey mind.

I created this article Monkey mind.

If anyone could expand this article with any information you know of -- the historical development of the term, its use in various literature, etc.., that would be great.

Also, I need to know the Japanese for this term. I know it is shin'en-iba, but I don't know what the Japanese kanji is.

Thanks! ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

AFD of List of Zen centers in the United States

There is currently a motion to delete List of Zen centers in the United States at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Zen centers in the United States. Interested parties are welcome to vote. (Mind meal (talk) 09:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC))

Expand {{Infobox church/sandbox}} to cover all places of worship?

There is a proposal to convert the draft infobox template {{Infobox church/sandbox}} into a template that can be used for all places of worship. We would like your views on whether you think this is a good idea, and if you are able to help identify parameters that would be relevant to the religion that your WikiProject deals with. Do join the discussion taking place at "Template talk:Infobox church". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 03:39, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Mindstream. Neologism / Original research?

Per article Mindstream. I haven't encountered this term before, and I don't find any independent sources online that use it with the same meaning as this article.
Can we produce any cites to show that this term is not a neologism (Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms) or original research (Wikipedia:No original research)?
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 20:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The term pops up a lot on Google. [5] On Buddhanet, the term is used as well. [6] In discussions with Buddhists, I've heard this term before, though it's mostly used by Tibetan Buddhists. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 22:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Naming conventions

The link is to an inactive page. Should it still be here? Peter jackson (talk) 11:12, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Tibet Collaboration

Would anyone be interested in starting a WikiProject Tibet collaboration project? I think with a bit of devoted effort we could bring an article to Featured Article status once every two months or so. I would suggest that, given the current unrest in the region, that we start with a relatively non-controversial topic. I propose Trisong Detsen. Who's with me? --Gimme danger (talk) 06:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd be interested. Don't have any source material for that particular person, but I'm happy to help with copy editing or other things. --Clay Collier (talk) 00:46, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Right now several editors are working on improving History of Tibet, which is in quite a state of disrepair and could use even a cursory copyedit. I'm waiting for some sort of response before going ahead and creating a collaboration page, and you're the only one who's responded so far. --Gimme danger (talk) 23:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Subprojects for Mahayana, Tibetan and Vajrayana Buddhism

Considering that the three subjects above each have a separate portal devoted to them, would it make sense to create subprojects dealing specifically with those Buddhist traditions? John Carter (talk) 22:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

What benefit would this provide, exactly? Also, the portals that you mentioned were mostly the work of one user, and it's not clear that they are active or being maintained. --Clay Collier (talk) 00:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, it would allow those individuals who are primarily interested in one of those traditions to concentrate their attention on that tradition. Also, it would allow the portals, including the inactive ones, to be much more readily maintained, as it would clarify which articles are directly relevant. John Carter (talk) 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Considering the lack of collaboration in the Buddhist Wikiproject, creating even more -- a Wikiproject for Tibet or sub-projects, would be counterntuitive. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 16:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Wasn't thinking so much of different projects, but rather task forces/work groups, probably using the existing Buddhism banner. But you might be right. John Carter (talk) 17:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree with Zenwhat; I suspect that creating additional sub-projects would just result in a few more inactive project pages and some make-work banner tagging, and not much else. There's also a lot of overlap between the proposed sub-projects- very few editors would be interested in Tibetan Buddhism but not Vajrayana and vice-versa (Shingon specialists perhaps being the exception, but there's not a lot of them here.)- and that a more geographic organization would make more sense if sub-projects are necessary. I'd say if there's a group of editors that feel they need more help coordinating their work but don't want to use the existing project, then that's fine but it doesn't make much sense to create structure that isn't going to be used. Maybe a post to the talk pages of some of the related articles would help assess if people feel there's a need. --Clay Collier (talk) 17:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism already exists as a sub-project of WP:China. I'm attempting to revive this group and would welcome collaborators. --Gimme danger (talk) 17:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit or Pali as standard?

For Buddhist terms, I've noticed there is an inconsistent usage of Pali and Sanskrit terms. Sometimes the Pali is used for the article title. Other times the Sanskrit term is used. Which language do you think should be used as a standard?

The sanskrit is more widely used (i.e. karma instead of kamma, dharma instead of dhamma), but the original terms were in Pali. Also, because Abhidharma is generally more important to Theravada than Mahayana, less common terms like the Four Foundations of Mindfulness are more likely to be found in Pali (Satipatthana) and not Sanskrit (smṛtyupasthāna). See those google searches to see what I mean. It would be ideal for either the Pali or Sanskrit terms to be standard, except in certain cases of specific Theravada or Mahayana articles. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 16:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I think in general the standard is to use Pali for articles about Theravada topics, and Sanskrit elsewhere. Even in Theravada topics the Sanskrit equivalent should be mentioned when it's significant, since Sanskrit is more familiar and more widely understood. Topics that are significant to both Theravada and non-Theravada schools should probably prefer Sanskrit, mentioning the Pali equivalent in the intro (the reverse of non-Theravada articles). To use a specific example, I would say that the Abhidharma article ought to favor Sanskrit (since we're talking generally about the concept of Abhidharma in both Theravada and Sarvastivadin schools, and could potentially talk about influence on later schools), while Abhidhamma Pitaka should use Pali since we're talking about a body of scriptures and ideas specific to the Theravada school. Also, it's not true that "the original terms were in Pali"- Pali was just one of several MIA languages that the early schools used to record their canons. --Clay Collier (talk) 17:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

In terms of my personal practice, the one thing I would add or perhaps tweak regarding Clay's very thoughtful and wise statement is that — as I vaguely recall can be found in contemporary English-language texts on Buddhism (e.g., Gethin? Harvey?) — in an article such as Middle way or Skandha or Vijnana that deals with a topic of both Theravada and Mahayana interest, when discussing material from the Pali literature, I've used Pali, not Sanskrit (e.g., since using the Sanskrit correlate could be misleading, disingenuous, wrong). In other words (based in part on a gloss of these three articles), this works out so that in such pan-Buddhist articles:

• the intro uses both Pali and Sanskrit
• sections dealing with the Pali literature reference Pali
• sections comparing Pali and Sanskrit literature use both if relevant (e.g., in the Skandha's paltry discussion of differences regarding "emptiness" and "self")
• all else uses Sanskrit (though, I wonder, about articles/sections specific to topics regarding Japanese, Tibetan, etc., schools)

Thoughts? Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 00:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with most of this. WP doesn't seem to be consistent. I raised this at Talk:Anatta. Peter jackson (talk) 10:44, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Peter - I find your and Nat's discussion about Sanskrit vs. Pali WP article titles interesting and valuable and look forward to seeing its outcome.

Tangentially, hoping I'm not causing this thread to veer too far off course, I've been piling up words in a sandbox for a possible WP article on mano. While I think all Theravada authors I've seen use the term mano, I see that Sue Hamilton (Identity and Experience) uses manas (which, partly based on my recollection of the PTS PED etymological note, I infer is the preferred Sanskrit form?). So, in your (or anyone's) view should I entitle such a future article mano or manas?

Thanks for sharing your valuable experience. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 17:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Manas is certainly the standard form used by Western scholars to refer to the Sanskrit word. Usage for Pali may be a bit less consistent, but sticking to the same general principles would give the same result. If you're thinking of an article on this, be very careful about whether or not manas, vinnana & citta are synonymous. Peter jackson (talk) 17:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Manas it will be then. Thanks! FWIW, I also very much appreciate and agree with your caveat regarding technical distinctions between manas, vijnana and citta in the Sutta Pitaka (e.g., I tried to get this across based on a Bodhi end-note summary of Hamilton at Vijnana#Overlapping_Pali_terms_for_mind, though reading Hamilton directly now I see there's room for signicantly improving this text [TBD].) (I realize Hamilton's not the only viable secondary source -- she attempts to refute/refine/expand analyses done by Johansson, Reat and others -- but she's the only one I currently have access to.) Thanks again, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 18:10, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I would advocate using the Sanskrit, even for shared topics, except when discussing overtly Theravadin material. Sanskrit use is far more normative across many of the 18 schools, and in almost all cases more familiar to an English-speaking audience. It is not true that the original terms were in Pali, as Zenwhat suggested. No one knows what Middle Indic Prakrit the Buddha taught in -- in all likelihood he taught in more than one. Certainly, his teachings were disseminated into a number of local vernaculars even before his death. What we know as "Pali" is a literary recension of one of them that itself evolved over hundreds of years. The early Sanskrit texts developed separately.Sylvain1972 (talk) 17:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

A few technical points. 18 schools are just a literary convention. There were substantially more, but only a few were important. Each had its own dialect. All of these were more or less Sanskritized (including Pali) from Middle Indic. Hinüber has argued that they all derived from the same original Prakrit, which he calls Buddhist Middle Indic & suggests may have been not too different from the Buddha's own language. Norman thinks the Buddha used whatever dialect was used by a particular audience, but nobody else seems to have adopted this idea. Peter jackson (talk) 09:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

History of Buddhism review

History of Buddhism has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Marskell (talk) 12:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Dorje Shugden

Could some editors from this Wikiproject look at Dorje Shugden (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and the related ANI thread? There is a lot of POV pushing going on there by people who follow this person's religion. I don't know a thing in the world Buddhism and wouldn't even know where to begin in fixing it. The bottom line is that about six accounts were all created on April 17 and have been seeking to turn this article into a devotional theology piece. They are certainly sockpuppets or meatpuppets and have driven away one good editor. Some guidance from editors who are familiar with this topic would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. --B (talk) 04:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

New article on David Kalupahana

User:Kester ratcliff has started an article on Buddhist writer David J. Kalupahana.
(1) Needs work, if anybody's interested.
(2) Is currently titled Kalupahana. Should presumably be titled David Kalupahana, right?
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 04:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Or possibly David J. Kalupahana? Peter jackson (talk) 09:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Names: "the article title should generally be the name by which the subject is most commonly known, [and] the subject's full name should be given in the lead paragraph, if known. Many cultures have a tradition of not using the full name of a person in everyday reference, but the article should start with the complete version."
Anybody have any objections to going with David J. Kalupahana?? -- Writtenonsand (talk) 14:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Buddhism and Christianity needs your help

Buddhism and Christianity could IMHO use a fair bit of work if anyone's interested. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 17:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I did alert the Christianity project, thinking they'd be interested in sorting out the gross overplaying of fringe theories about alleged Buddhist influence on Christianity, but nobody seems to have responded yet. Peter jackson (talk) 10:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I've now reported the article at WP:FTN. Peter jackson (talk) 10:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

RfC Buddhism

NPOV dispute. Peter jackson (talk) 13:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Wheel of Dhamma award

I see User:Mind meal has been a nominee for the Wheel of Dhamma award since before April 15th. Has there been any discusssion? I certainly agree with the nomination and propose we actually go ahead and give him the WoD. Does anyone disagree? Dakinijones (talk) 11:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• And does anybody agree? Dakinijones (talk) 19:48, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 822 of the articles assigned to this project, or 26.3%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

This sounds useful to me. Anyone object to me adding the tag to our project page... or maybe a sub-page would be better? Dakinijones (talk) 19:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 22:12, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Ishta-deva, Yidam or meditational deity

Please, if you are interested, let us know what you think on this issue. Some time ago, the page on Yidam was changed into Ishta-deva as part of vajrayana Buddhism. According to some people, like myself, this is an odd title change that only will confuse people to find this page. My point is that in literature, Ishta-deva might mean the same in Sanskrit as Yidam in Tibetan, but nearly nobody uses the Sanskrit term, so if you have an opinion on this, please leave a note on the talk page of Ishta-deva.rudy (talk) 22:38, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Any more nominations?

We currently have two nominations for User:Mind_meal to receive the Wheel of Dhamma. If anyone would like to make it three, we can actually give him the award. If you'd like to add your name you can do so at Wheel of Dhamma nominations. Dakinijones (talk) 19:25, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to move Tibtan Buddhism

Tibetan Buddhism has been under the domain of Project Tibet. There is currently a suggestion being discussed at Project Tibet that Tibetan Buddhism should be moved to Project Buddhism. Do project Buddhism members agree or disagree? Dakinijones (talk) 14:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be in both? Peter jackson (talk) 08:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. Is Zen under Project Japan as well as Project Buddhism? Maybe that would give us an indication? You might want to mention this point to the discussion over at project Tibet Dakinijones (talk) 12:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I've always assumed overlap is standard practice. Otherwise we'd be liable to turf wars. Eg Pali Canon is in Buddhism & Religious texts. Whether Zen should be under Japan might depend on whether you include Chan, Son & Thien. Peter jackson (talk) 11:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Good point... maybe Tibetan Buddhism should also be under Nepal, Bhutan Mongolia and Russia? Like I said, I really have no idea what the usual practice is and no particular opinion either way. Not sure from your response whether Zen is under Japan too or not, is that something you happen to know? I wouldn't even know how to find out. Dakinijones (talk) 20:56, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

You can find out what projects an article is affiliated to by looking at the top of its talk page. You might try a sample to see what usual practice is. I think there's a general project coordination page somewhere that may say what the general practice is supposed to be. Peter jackson (talk) 10:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

What is the English name for "begging" in Buddhism?

Hi, everyone. I seek your help to improve Korean temple cuisine that I recently have expand. I mean not just a common begging by beggars, but by monks or nuns as a mean to live and a practice decrees of Buddha. In Korea, it is called takbal (탁발, 托鉢), and I found Takuhatsu, named by Japanese pronunciation. However, I'm not sure it is a common English name for the practice. Can you enlighten me on this? Thanks.--Caspian blue (talk) 00:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

How about "alms round"? Peter jackson (talk) 08:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Clay Collier also gave a detailed information on this.[7]--Caspian blue (talk) 11:11, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I think a point to remember is that Buddhist monks don't actually beg. That is, they don't ask. They simply stand silently. Peter jackson (talk) 13:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Byodo-In Temple

WikiProject Hawaii would like to collaborate with WikiProject Buddhism on Byodo-In Temple. If anyone has any interest, please reply here. Viriditas (talk) 09:29, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Buddha's Light International Association

Hello, may I ask if this is a notable Buddhist organization. Perhaps you could take a look at this and Buddha's Light International Association - Philippines. You could reply on WP:PINOY.--Lenticel ^(talk) 14:12, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Buddhism

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

external-link-editor

What to do with this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Bawantha

Greetings, Sacca 09:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

What's the problem? This editor appears to do nothing but deal with external links. There's no rule against specialization. If you object to something in particular, say so. Peter jackson (talk) 10:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Abhidhamma Pitaka#RfC

NPOV dispute. Peter jackson (talk) 09:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Intermediate state

It seems there's no article on this. Bardo says that strictly speaking it's not a correct use of the term, or perhaps it's only 1 use. In any case, the idea exists in East Asian Buddhism as well as Tibetan, so a Tibetan name for a general article on the topic is inappropriate. That leaves Sansrit & English as possibilities. WP policy is to use the commoner name in English usage. Perhaps someone knows what that is. If we find that English is the correct form, we'll have to discuss it with our Christianity colleagues as they already have an article under that title. Peter jackson (talk) 17:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Bardo is a very specific Tibetan teaching. It can stay as it is. The six Bardo states are not taught in any other Buddhist group. Greetings, Sacca 13:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Perfectly correct. However, East Asian Buddhism has its own doctrine of an intermediate state. Thre should be an article covering that, along with whatever of Bardo can properly be combined with it. Peter jackson (talk) 10:01, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

L. Ron Hubbard good article reassessment

L. Ron Hubbard has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Cirt (talk) 09:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Pali VS Sanskrit

I saw many uses of Sanskrit through English Wikipedia. Nirvana, Dharma... why!?! Cannot it be Nibbhana or Dhamma. I am not being offensive to Mahayanas, some of my ancestors are Mahayanas as well. Though, I learn and pray in Pali. Theravada uses Pali while Mahayana uses Sanskrit. I understand that the whole WP cannot be convert into single one language.

“ Mahayana spreads Buddhism away, while Theravada keeps the original teachings ”

Emm... it's hard to decide which language should be used:

• Pali - Theravada comes before Mahayanas.
• Sanskrit - Recognised by Mahayanas which is being practised more than Theravada.

I think it is NOT fair to mention only 1 school, while mentioning Christianity 10/more schools.

Again, I accept both school is aim to teach people to cut themselves from the Samsara and death - to enter Nibbhana. I am not being offensive, too. Without any of them, Buddhism wouldn't survive well. Without Theravada, the teachings would not be origin - Mahayana changed some, but I am not blaming anyone and not accusing anyone. Without Mahayana, Buddhism would be practised in only few countries.

But how can we decide which one would be best? This issue is not going to end soon.

Last time, Mahayana and Theravada is both GOOD. I am NOT saying Mahayana teaches non-Buddha teachings nor Theravada is best. If you are angry with my words I must apologise. --Passawuth (talk) 12:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear sir: actually this is presently being discussed elsewhere on Talk:Buddhism#pāli, sanskrit ( संस्कृत ) and devanagari. Perhaps the two conversations should be merged? I'd like to make a few points:

1) Words like "dharma" and "nirvana" are among the small number of Buddhist jargons terms which are partly accepted into the English language. Therefore, they should be used in their English forms, regardless of the source language. That means "dharma" rather than "dhamma" and "nirvana" rather than "nibbana".

2) One of the advantages of Sanskrit is that it is not the main language of any existing Buddhist school. Mahayana in East Asia uses Classical Chinese as its scriptural language, and tantric Mahayana in Tibet and Central Asia uses Tibetan.

3) Historically, Sanskrit was not used only by Mahayana schools. All of the Nikaya Buddhist (so-called "Hinayana") texts that we have from schools other than Theravada (Sarvastivada, Mahasanghika, etc.) are in Sanskrit.

4) As has been pointed out on Talk:Buddhism many English-language scholars tend to use the convention of using Sanskrit jargon terms as a "pan-Buddhist lingua franca". Wikipedia normally tries to follow the conventions of high-quality English scholarship.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 12:42, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a minor correction to point 3. There are a few texts like the Gandhari Dharmapada. Peter jackson (talk) 14:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Moreover, I don't want to give the impression that non-Theravada Buddhism was always or originally in Sanskrit. I think almost everyone agrees that most (almost all?) of the Sanskrit canonical texts are translations from earlier Prakrit versions. I believe this is true not only for the Nikaya schools but also (to a lesser extent?) Mahayana as well. Some of the Mahayana commentarial works, such as Nagarjuna, appear to be original to Sanskrit, though.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• Yes. I do not disagree nor oppose that fact. However, Theravada uses Pali. For just right now. Praying in Pali and moreover. Try search on google for Pali-Theravada relationships.
  • I was told, taught and understood that Mahayana uses Sanskrit. I read the book about history of Buddhism in China, and it says some monks from China brought Sanskrit books back to the country. China practices Mahayana Buddhism.
  • From number 1, it is accepted in English language because Chinese and Japanese live in UK and USA more than SEA people.
  • From number 2, I also accept that as well. I participated Mahayana ceremonies, too. They spoke in Chinese. However, I found Japanese Buddhist book using Sanskrit instead of Pali.
  • From number 3, I am talking about right now, and especially in particular parts of SEA. History is not a thing I can oppose with.
  • From number 4, that shall exist that Pali is mention as well as Sanskrit. It may confuse people that write "Dhamma" and "Nibbhana" for all their lives. Some were not mentioned, but some fortunately were mentioned.
  • I accept all of your comments. I will re-think again for those you say, and will decide to discuss more or to end the discussion and use Sanskrit. Thank you. --Passawuth (talk) 15:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• I search more and find out more again. Originally, Mahayana used Sanskrit. Until Sanskrit cannons were destroyed (I guessed in the reign of Qin Huangti, but I'm not even 70% sure), the cannons were re-written in Classical Chinese and Tibetans. Japan also translates it into Japanese. It's just like Theravada... Thailand, Laos, Cambodia all use Pali. Then we translated into our language - but we still maintain Pali to be known by all monks and Khmer script to be comprehended by all monks as well. It is also said that Mahayana used Prakrit as well as Sanskrit.
• However, the term Theravada does not mean only Theravada group that uses Pali to write the canon in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, there are more schools of Theravada that use Sanskrit and Prakrit as well.

If you want the source I can give you the source, but I think it would be useless anyway. --Passawuth (talk) 01:14, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Mahayana scriptures were translated into Chinese & Tibetan for the appropriate audiences. Many of the Sanskrit originals were lost with the virtual disappearance of Buddhism in India. Whereas Theravada emphasizes the original language, Mahayana doesn't. Peter jackson (talk) 11:07, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

There was a gradual process of Sanskritization. In Theravada it stopped fairly early, & Pali is not very Sanskritized. Other schools varied. Mahayana scriptures represent a late rstage of the process. How Sanskritized they were when originally composed would vary with when, & probably where, they originated. Mahayana teratises were written in grammaticcally correct Sanskrit from the start, tho' many words are used in senses not found in Hindu Sanskrit. Peter jackson (talk) 11:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The 'sanskritization' of Buddhist concepts in words like Dharma and karma is also inspired by Hinduism. Since Buddhism uses the same concepts as Hinduism, the English just adopted what they heard most frequently. Greetings, Sacca 13:35, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Buddhism uses the same terms as Hinduism. Whether they have the same meanings is another question. Peter jackson (talk) 09:59, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Kamma in Buddhism is 'the fruit of volitional action'. Karma in Hinduism may be that, but a good deal more is involved. -- Evertype·✆ 11:58, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Sentient beings (Buddhism)

There is a debate about the content of this article. Frankly I am in over my head and I can't understand what one particular user is talking about. I have added a request for comment to the talk page, and the input of persons with an understanding of different Buddhist philosophies would be very helpful. Click here to comment. Thanks! Beeblebrox (talk) 20:07, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I second Beeblebrox's request. User:B9 hummingbird hovering seems to have put a bunch of work into collecting sources, but they're just cast broadside into the article, and are far too technical and out of context to be encyclopedic. Beeblebrox and I took a stab at a stub, but B9 reverted it claiming that his "scholarly pastiche" was heading toward a "grand synthesis" (the article had gone unchanged for quite some time) and suggesting that our stub only reflected the point of view of the "Gelugpa hegemony". Although I don't think our stub was that bad, I'm happy to admit that it was a start—a stub—and would love to have seen it expanded and deepened—but I'm not convinced reversion was any improvement. In any case, some more comprehensible input from someone who understands the use of this term in Buddhist scholarship (or at least some corroboration on the article's current state) would be helpful. Thanks. /Ninly (talk) 01:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The stub we offered is now archived in my subpages. I'll be happy to incorporate other POVs if someone can point out what's not being represented and what backs it up as a scholarly view. /Ninly (talk) 01:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I've expanded and reinstated the Sentient beings (Buddhism) stub based on B9's references and some input from Peter (see the talk page). It's still a bit lacking in Theravada perspective and could certainly use some elucidation, but I think it's an improvement. Hope you agree; any input would be most welcome. /Ninly (talk) 22:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Me

That is, Michael Everson. I'm a non-theistic Buddhist. But why is the article about me part of this project? I've encoded scripts used by Buddhists (Tibetan, Tai Tham, Sinhala, Myanmar). Just wondering, really, about the criteria. -- Evertype·✆ 11:56, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks like someone tagged the article about you with one of the 'Buddhist people' categories. Anything with a 'Buddhist Blah' category tends to also get tagged with the 'WikiProject Buddhism' banner on its talk page. It also looks like anything with the WP:Buddhism banner that was also tagged for 1.0 inclusion was dumped on the project page at some point. Bureaucracy in action, I suspect. Really doesn't seem the sort of article that this project would be able to provide any meaningful input for, unless your coming was foretold in some Pali chronicle that we can argue over. --Clay Collier (talk) 12:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Heh. Sometimes I think about translating the Dhammapada into Irish. But I'm busy at this stage of my life. I've no objection to the tagging. Just wondered why. -- Evertype·✆ 13:14, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion

These are some Buddhist articles for deletion, which editors may wish to look at:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/What the Buddha Taught
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Perfect Mirror
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Dance of 17 Lives
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Children's Past Lives -- Johnfos (talk) 02:53, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Bodies of buddah

This has just been created by a new editor, can someone please take a look and either fix it or take it to AfD or? Thanks. 08:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)dougweller (talk)

Prod tagged it; hopefully won't be contested. I don't believe there is anything there that isn't already covered in Trikaya. Optionally, someone might consider making a redirect from 'bodies of Buddha' to Trikaya. --Clay Collier (talk) 08:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion

Looking for some opinions on this one.

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dharma fellowship

--Clay Collier (talk) 00:38, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Go Turnkey?

What do people think of converting our WikiProject page to a Turnkey Project, which uses a few templates to make WikiProject organization a bit more ergonomic? With the bulk of material the project page has accumulated, I find it a lot less useful and informative than it could be, and the transition may encourage us to fork off some of the longer discussions and subtopics with links from the main project page.

I have already started to piece it together on my subpages – see User:Ninly/WikiProject Buddhism for a very rough idea of how things would look. If we decide to go for it, we can prettify things there and then copy/paste most of it to the actual page. I'm not a template whiz (yet!), but I belong to one WikiProject that has been using Turnkey, and I especially like the looks of WikiProject Anglicanism's adaptation of the templates – they also have some things (Resources and Naming Conventions templates, for instance) that we may find useful.

Oops, forgot to sign. /Ninly (talk) 19:11, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Since I was getting no feedback (indicating to me that the project page wasn't really being used by participants) I boldly went for it! Hope no one minds, and I hope I didn't mess anything up too much. If there's anything from the old page you'd like to integrate, it's all at Wikipedia:WikiProject Buddhism/Archive. Feel free to alter or improve this work however you see fit, especially if you have experience with frames and templates or WikiProject organization. I'm pretty new to this sort of thing. Thank you! /Ninly (talk) 08:05, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Infoboxes used on Lamas

There is inconsistency in usage in the articles of the various lineage lamas - I've posted at Template talk:Infobox Buddhist biography with details and initial thoughts on how to fix this. Please take a look and comment. Thanks--22:04, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup listing

Subscribed this project to User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription, by transcluding that box to the WikiProject main page. It has to be on the WikiProject main page for it to work - so please don't remove it - thank you! Cirt (talk) 18:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Portal:Buddhism

This portal is currently undergoing a portal peer review. Comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Buddhism/archive1. Cirt (talk) 05:38, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Buddhaghosa

There is a Good Article review going on for Buddhism; initial feedback and comments are available at Talk:Buddhaghosa/GA1. I was hoping to draw some feedback about the 'Criticism' section of the current article, which consists of a quote from Shravasti Dhammika regarding the postscript to the Visuddhimagga. First of all, I'm not familiar enough with the work of this monk (he seems to be an Australian writing and working in Singapore) to know if his criticism is notable enough for inclusion in the article. Second, I was wondering if there are any other notable criticisms that would warrant inclusion, or if any writers have responded to the critique that Shravasti Dhammika puts forth in his book. --Clay Collier (talk) 01:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The article was passed for GA status. Thanks to everyone who contributed feedback or made improvements in the article during the GA review. --Clay Collier (talk) 04:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Image question

File:Kyogen Carlson.JPG

There is an image of a Buddhist abbot that I have put up for deletion. Someone suggested it be kept for use in an article on the type of robe he is wearing. I ask that people here use this image in some appropriate article(s) so that it may be kept, and I will withdraw the nomination. If it cannot be used, so be it. Thanks! ~ JohnnyMrNinja 08:29, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Buddhism and the Body - A School Project

Please note that there are several students presently creating the article, Buddhism and the body as a part of a school project. Any help you might give them or edits you might contribute to this page are graciously welcome. Also, please note that a couple of antagonistic editors have been interfering in these students' work, and so an assistance with this would also be appreciated. Most notably, one editor has requested the page's deletion despite the fact that there is an "under construction" tag on the article and improvements continue to be made. Thank you.Vote Cthulhu (talk) 02:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I've reformatted the above to link. Peter jackson (talk) 09:07, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I see the link is red, so has it been deleted already? Peter jackson (talk) 09:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Fixed the link. Body is (erroneously) in lower case in article title. Can someone fix that?Vote Cthulhu (talk) 14:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Why should it be capitalized? Body is not a proper noun. This form fits the WP:MOS for article names. (See [8].) Aleta ^Sing 19:02, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

The article in question is currently being considered for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Buddhism and the body. --Clay Collier (talk) 20:57, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Sexuality and Buddhism

Hi all. I created this article by copying pieces from four different articles together. This said, it needs a major rewrite, cleanup and maybe expansion for some parts. I think there is a great potential in this article. Also some info from the other articles maybe a bit questionable, and needs correction. Please join writing it, bold editing is needed. Siru108 (talk) 07:53, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Ten billion elephants?

Hello. I'm hoping someone here can help with the page on the Physical characteristics of the Buddha. The 27th secondary characteristic has at various times been given as "He has the strength of 1,000 crore elephants or 100,000 crore men" and "he is a very happy man" by different editors. I've found websites which give both, and also this list which is completely different from the one on Wikipedia. None of the websites I turned up seemed particularly more or less reliable than the others to me, so I'm at a loss as to which is the correct version. Does anyone know an authoritative source? Or are there genuinely multiple versions of the list? Cheers, Olaf Davis (talk) 14:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there are different versions. I think the best collation is in Edgerton's Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary, under anuvyañjana. Peter jackson (talk) 08:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Access to Insight's Copyright

Is Access to Insight's "dana" copyright compatible with the GFDL? It would be handy, as they are an excellent, scholarly source for Pali Canon sutras and scholarly writings by e.g. Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

From their page on copyright:

. . . You may copy and redistribute any texts from this website, provided that you abide by these two basic principles:

1. You may not sell any texts copied or derived from this website.
2. You may not alter the content of any texts copied or derived from this website. (You may, however, reformat them — see below).

J B Bell (talk) 22:12, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Pretty sure it isn't. The non-commercial and non-alteration clauses are both in conflict with the GFDL. The ATI stuff is fine as a source, but as for direct inclusion into WP, I don't think it's possible. GFDL requires that the licensee be allowed to alter the text, and that both commercial or non-commercial distribution is possible. --Clay Collier (talk) 23:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Pings Xiao

Please check Pings Xiao for neutrality and notability. The Chinese article about him is currently fully protected which gives rise to suspicions. — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 06:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I've asked the editor who started the original article to try and address the notability issue that you raised with the prod notice. It's entirely possible that this guy and his views are very popular in Taiwan without making much of a splash in the English-speaking world, but his Google footprint seems to be minuscule when the specific spellings used in the article are used, and impossible to determine otherwise (using Pinx Xiao, Xiaoping Shi, or Xiao Ping Shi). There are some pretty odd arguments being made within the article with respect to 'proving' the historicity of the Tathagatagarbha teachings. --Clay Collier (talk) 08:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

This article is currently being considered for deletion. If you're interested, you may wish to comment here. --Clay Collier (talk) 10:01, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Buddha's Birthday and Vesak

Hi, everyone. We have a DYK event for Buddha's Birthday and Vesak just like events for Christmas or April Fool's day. Buddhism has affected many culture, so I think you guys can create/edit Buddhist articles in upcoming five days. Once you create or five fold expand Buddhist related articles (famous temples, monks, movies, literature, paintings, foods, etc) within 5 days, and then nominate it to the below place. After a review, your article can be featured on the main page. So be hurry if you are interested. :) Thanks.

Template talk:Did you know#Articles created/expanded for Buddha's Birthday (May 2) and Vesak (May 9) --Caspian blue 18:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Dorje Shugden RfC

I've opened an RfC about a few issues related to the depiction of Dorje Shugden here in that article. Some input from people familiar with the issue would be helpful, given the controversy surrounding the topic. --Clay Collier (talk) 01:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages

User:Mr.Z-man has a new service available to various requesting WikiProjects which gives the project a monthly update of the number of hits on the 1,000 most frequently accessed articles for that project. An example of such a listing can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Popular pages. Would the members of this project be interested in getting such a list for their use? John Carter (talk) 18:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Taishakuten

I noticed today that there is no article for the Japanese Buddhist deity Taishakuten (帝釈天); nor is it a redirect to something else. Both the articles for Sakra and Indra indicate that they are the same entity as Taishakuten... rather than create a redirect or alter either article, I figure I'll leave it up to the experts.

(While you're at it, the Sakra article has a very narrow South Asian focus. If this is indeed the same entity as Taishakuten, that article needs to be expanded to cover China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia as well.)

Thanks! LordAmeth (talk) 20:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Religious response to ART

Hi, I just created a page on religious responses to fertility treatment. I don't know enough to write the Buddhist opinion. Would someone like to help out?Joe407 (talk) 15:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I doubt there's such a thing as "the" Buddhist opinion. At a guess, I imagine most Buddhists would have no fundamental objection to artificial creation of life in itself, though they might well consider it based on excessive desire for children. Methods involving "disposal" of "surplus" embryos would likely be frowned on, however. I have no source for this at present, but I think Damien Keown has written about such matters. Peter jackson (talk) 16:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

[9] is a review of Keown's book Buddhism and Bioethics. From the review it appears that the book is intended as a suggestion of what Buddhists might think, from which it seems likely there is simply no material available on what they actually think. Peter jackson (talk) 10:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Twelve Heavenly Generals: Chinese, Sanskrit,... names

I would like to extend the table of names in Twelve Heavenly Generals to cover also other languages, similar to the table in Four Heavenly Kings. Since my language abilities are limited I am looking for somebody who knows enough Chinese (or any other suitable language) to help with the names. Thanks bamse (talk) 23:18, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

It's best to ask somebody at the foreign languages help desk.

Thanks. bamse (talk) 12:45, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Faith in Buddhism, Kalama Sutta needs help

I noticed that a sub-section of the Kalama Sutta article recently had a very different tone and content. Notice this version [10] and compare it with a recent version. [11] Very different, indeed!

It seems likely that the Faith in Buddhism article could use some work too.

It would be good to have a version that is accurate and makes everybody happy. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 02:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

A lot of stuff in both those articles looks like propaganda for someone's personal opinions. Peter jackson (talk) 09:58, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I cut the section in Kalama Sutta; it appears to have been a personal essay or attempt at OR. Interestingly, that section seems to have begun life as a personal essay in the same vein, but arguing for something of the opposite POV. --Clay Collier (talk) 06:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

So did someone pop in & decide to "correct" what someone else had written? Peter jackson (talk) 09:39, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Yup- the original version argued that the skepticism of the Kalama was never meant to apply to the words of the Buddha and emphasized for the importance of faith in practicing the teachings; right here an IP user changed it to argue that even Buddha's teachings were meant to be subject to rigorous skepticism and that external authority has no place in Buddhism. --Clay Collier (talk) 10:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

You can probably find both views in "reliable sources", & probably others. Peter jackson (talk) 10:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Photo description help requested

What exactly are these guardian figures over the door of the Sakya Monastery in Seattle supposed to represent? Are they lions? - Jmabel | Talk 03:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

That would be my guess- Snow Lions specifically. --Clay Collier (talk) 06:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Islam has an outline in the OOK, but Buddhism does not

See Outline of Islam.

For instructions, see Wikipedia:Outlines.

Also see WP:WPOOK.

Thank you.

Good luck.

Have fun.

The Transhumanist 00:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I see on looking there that it's just a list of topics. Peter jackson (talk) 09:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Seems like a great idea. Maybe I'll work on it in a couple of days when I'm not so busy. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 02:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Had a look at this. The listing seems to have a massive Theravada bias. There are only a handful of Mahayana entries, & none at all for the largest Mahayana school, if not the largest Buddhist school, Pure Land. Peter jackson (talk) 16:41, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I copy here the response. Peter jackson (talk) 11:02, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, because I am a Theravadin and don't have enough knowledge about Mahayana, so I trust that other users will improve the Mahayana coverage of this article. I apologize if this creates a "massive Theravada bias". eu.stefan (talk) 16:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

userbox

just add: {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Buddhism/User}}

I collaborate in the Wikiproject of Buddhism

Bodigami (talk) 01:22, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Third Bardor Tulku Rinpoche

The article Third Bardor Tulku Rinpoche has recently been created, and was largely written by one (new) user; I therefore think it would be helpful (in the interests of balance, etc) if others could look it over. I personally don't know enough about the subject; specifically, I would question some of the sources, which may be somewhat self-referential, but I don't know enough about the topic.

Thanks,  Chzz  ►  00:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

On an initial read through, I don't see anything terribly problematic balance/NPOV-wise. I would want to double check and see if there is any relationship with the Karmapa controversy (since the previous Karmapa is mentioned as one of his teachers), but I don't see any obvious problems. --Clay Collier (talk) 01:50, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Outline of Buddhism

Eu.stefan, you have done an amazing job on the Outline of Buddhism. Thank you. The Transhumanist 22:12, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Call for editors to help manage religion related content

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#Coordination of activity. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 19:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Thousand-armed Kannon

While patrolling new pages, I came across Thousand-armed Kannon which a new editor started translating from the Japanese article, but then got busy with something else and hasn't been back for a month. I have no idea how best to proceed with this, and I hope someone here will take it under their wing and at least give some context to the article and add it to appropriate categories in the hope that the translator will be back before too long. Thanks. --Derek Andrews (talk) 21:48, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

List of religious organizations

Hi. The article List of religious organizations is in need of serious help. It was in an abandoned state and discussed for deletion, however I feel it has strong potential to become a useful list. But it needs lots of help and collaboration. Is someone of you interested? --Cyclopia^talk 23:46, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Robina Courtin

Need help expanding bio, and reassessment of article class. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 06:36, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Dukkha in all references

Hi,

Because dukkha is such a core concept, would it be useful to implement the paragraph below throughout articles on Buddhism, and avoid the traditional "suffering" translation?

From Dukkha, "Meaning," paragraph 2:

``````````````

Although dukkha is often translated as "suffering", its philosophical meaning is more analogous to "disquietude" as in the condition of being disturbed. As such, "suffering" is too narrow a translation with "negative emotional connotations" (Jeffrey Po)[2], which can give the impression that the Buddhist view is one of pessimism, but Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but realistic. Thus in English-language Buddhist literature dukkha is often left untranslated, so as to encompass its full range of meaning. [3][4][5].

````````````

With all respect to the great teachers who have translated dukkha as "suffering" (especially Trungpa Rinpoche), this could be helpful in dealing with this term more precisely. The suggestion is to replace all instances of "suffering" with the transliterated word itself, dukkha, and include an in-line parenthetical note or footnote to a text similar to above. The dukkha article should remain as is, since it explains this issue sufficiently. Maybe the translation note could only be given the first time in each article.

EXAMPLE with replacements:

```````````````````````

Skandha

In Buddhist phenomenology and soteriology, the five skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandhas (Pāli) are five "aggregates" which categorize all individual experience, among which there is no "Self" to be found.

In the Theravada tradition, dukkha (unpleasantness, disquiet) arises when one identifies with or otherwise clings to an aggregate; hence, dukkha [footnote] is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates. The Mahayana tradition further puts forth that ultimate freedom is realized by deeply penetrating the nature of all aggregates as intrinsically empty of independent existence.

Outside of Buddhist didactic contexts, "skandha" can mean mass, heap, pile, bundle or tree trunk.[1] `````````````````````````` What do think?

best, Paul 78.108.170.40 (talk) 14:51, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't supposed to give its own opinions on such things, merely to report what others have said, which is quite a lot of different things. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Nobody watching Pure Land Buddhism?

It would seem fantastic that Amidism, the #1 synonym of Pure Land Buddhism in English, could be scrubbed from the article with all its sources and nobody noticed for six months, and yet, and yet... I have tried to restore it, but I think some regulars keeping an eye on Pure Land Buddhism would be useful. 62.147.27.150 (talk) 19:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Infobox for Buddhist temple

Can you give me a link for an infobox. Thanks. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 15:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Um, I think we gots none. Template:Infobox religious building, Template:Infobox religious building/sandbox, and maybe Template:Infobox monastery look to be the closest approximations. John Carter (talk) 18:18, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Category:Bhikkhu

Hi folks

I have proposed that the recently-created Category:Bhikkhu should be deleted through the Categories for discussion process.

Comments from members of this project would be very welcome in the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 January 1#Category:Bhikkhu, where your expertise may help clarify the issues. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Buddhism to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Buddhism/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 06:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Physical characteristics of the Buddha

At Physical characteristics of the Buddha, a group of IP editors has been trying to add this to the article. That's not correct, is it? (I apologize for my cultural cluelessness.) Zagalejo^^^ 05:16, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

No it isn't, but then there are loads of other mistakes in both Pali & translation anyway. Peter jackson (talk) 10:55, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment on Biographies of living people

Hello Wikiproject! Currently there is a discussion which will decide whether wikipedia will delete 49,000 articles about a living person without references, here:

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

Since biographies of living people covers so many topics, many wikiproject topics will be effected.

The two opposing positions which have the most support is:

1. supports the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, User:Jehochman
2. opposes the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, except in limited circumstances, User:Collect

Comments are welcome. Keep in mind that by default, editor's comments are hidden. Simply press edit next to the section to add your comment.

Please keep in mind that at this point, it seems that editors support deleting unreferenced BLP articles if they are not sourced, so your project may want to source these articles as soon as possible. See the next, message, which may help.

Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people

List of cleanup articles for your project

If you don't already have Cleanup listings, Cleanup listings is a bot which collects all tagged unreferenced biographies of living people, plus other lists onto one page in your project.

It is very easy to add to your project: simply add a template to a page of your project! Instructions

A list of examples is here

Moving unreferenced blp articles to special "incubation pages"

If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles that your project covers, to a special "incubation page", contact me, User talk:Ikip

Watchlisting all unreferenced articles

If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip

Ikip 08:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Glen Ard Abbey

There is a newly created article on Glen Ard Abbey, a Buddhist monastery, and it has been listed in WP:AFD - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glen Ard Abbey.

At the moment it is slightly spammy, but I suspect notability could possibly be establised and it could be rescued. Smappy (talk) 02:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Master Cheng

Master Cheng seems a bit off to me – is this promotional, or just in need of citation? Not sure what's going on, and I don't want to prod it if it's worth improving. The link recently placed on the Zen article (in Dutch?) seems especially odd to me; don't currently have time to follow up. Thoughts? /ninly_(talk) 18:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"is the essence of Satsang, Advaita Vedanta, Yoga and Zen." is obviously someone's opinion, not a fact. Peter jackson (talk) 10:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

That particular phrase has since your comment been removed from the article; I've opened a discussion on Talk:Master Cheng. No response so far, but if anyone has input or a suggestion on how to proceed, please contribute. /ninly_(talk) 14:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:Buddhism Policy Proposal

The following discussion has been on talk:Buddhism up till now. As the discussion involves all Buddhism-related pages, it has been moved here. This is slightly edited, to keep it in bearing with the Proposal. The original text is archived. (20040302 (talk))

Original suggestion

I have been learning more about WP:RS, WP:V as well as WP:PSTS . In the end, it appears that we (the editors of this page and others) must have consensus over what content is considered to be a reliable source, and therefore who may be considered as authors of RS material. My opinion on this (which is relevant as a member of the editorial community - and therefore a member of any consensus-making body) is that (and possibly PJ agrees with me here) there are NO reliable sources that we can agree upon for topics with a broad and disparate scope as is found in Buddhism. I would almost suggest that we author a WP Policy for Buddhist-related articles which states as much.

The consequences of such would be that (possibly) we do not author anything Buddhist-related as facts -but instead use named cites within the editorial itself to indicate who says what and where, and let the reader judge. This would entail that our arguments here (and elsewhere on Buddhism-related articles) would not completely cease -but they would be about just who's opinions are notable enough to be represented on the article. So, in my mind, one may argue that Williams (when Williams makes an opinion) could be considered MORE authoritative than Eliot regarding Mahayana Buddhism, just because he is more contemporary, but I would not necessarily discount Eliot at all, if he has something notable and interesting to say; however, I would not accept his (or anyone else's) word as fact, except for what material he writes which would be considered [WP:PS]. Likewise, articles from more recent articles of the JBE could be considered MORE authoritative than Williams, just because they are even more contemporary. I am not making that claim (I may one day); I am just using an example. At least we could then spend less time arguing over doctrinal points, and develop some form of reasonable approach to develop some form of criteria that would allow us to agree. Maybe contemporariness is not an issue - but maybe we can agree to make a decision about that one way or another. Likewise, regarding specific scholars such as Harvey - I believe he is reasonably authoritative regarding Theravada, but he is completely out of his depth regarding the Tibetan traditions. (I firmly believe that any discussion that makes claims that one group of Buddhists (such as the East Asians, Tibetans, Theravada or any other) have more sway, import, or grasp of the truth is a waste of time here. We are not here to be such judges either).

This may be considered as somewhat of a U-turn for me, but tbh I am much more interested in finding a degree of stability as well as accuracy for wp:buddhism than just in endlessly arguing. There are some very well-taught and well-learned editors here. It is a waste of everyone's time to go round in circles.

I am concerned that if we are unable to reach consensus on just who we consider to be RS (and over just what areas of Buddhism they are RS for), or at least some guidelines on how to make such a judgement as a community, then we will never find any rest regarding Buddhism-related articles.

An important aspect of these guidelines could be (as PJ suggests immediately above) that the order of articles follows a timeline, rather than following any idea of importance - I would instantly agree to that.

Am I being ridiculously idealistic? (20040302 (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC))

Discussion

On the spur of the moment, 2 problems with that suggstion occur to me:

1. What about the lead? You can't possibly put all views into 4 paragraphs (unless they're extremely long paragraphs of course; the guideline doesn't actually say how long a paragraph should be).
2. What about the argumentum e silentio I've been mentioning a number of times in these discussions? The fact that sources say little or nothing about something can be strong evidence, but it's not verifiable in a lot of cases (how do you give the page number where a book doesn't say something?). Peter jackson (talk) 16:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Peter, it's very possible that I'm misunderstanding what you are saying, so please correct if I'm wrong, but we cannot make or infer the argumentum ex silentio as that would constitute original research. Viriditas (talk) 04:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay - both are excellent questions. My answer for the first would be that the lead should reflect the content of the article. It should be a synopsis. If the article is very long, then it should probably be split out into different articles, with merely a synopsis for each of the structural elements. I get your point though - which is what do we choose to synopsise considering we must not synthesise. I think it is a question worthy of further discussion.

Regarding the argumentum e silentio you mention - a decision regarding that could easily form a part of the policy. I could not accept a strong argument (that omission implies a disbelief) but I can certainly accept a weak argument (that there was nothing to be said on such an issue) or a mere absence of belief (an unknowning). I expect scholars to be explicit in their disbelief. (20040302 (talk) 17:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC))

Here's an outline of the historical arrangement most commonly followed:

1. The Buddha & his teachings [clearly distinguishing historical fact from legend & mentioning historians' disagreements]
2. India
   1. Early Buddhism
   2. Mahayana
   3. Vajrayana/Mantrayana/Tantra
3. Theravada
4. East Asian Buddhism [China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan]
5. Tibetan Buddhism
6. Buddhism in the modern world

This is how it's arranged in the following:

• Bechert & Gombrich, World of Buddhism
• Robinson et al, Buddhist Religions
• Prebish & Keown, Introducing Buddhism

And some others differ only slightly. Peter jackson (talk) 17:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with that basic structure. Of course, we need to be careful with a whole set of things: First of all how to separate tradition from school - eg tibetan buddhist or east asian buddhist sources from mahayana, especially as there are many doctrinal distinctions as we have found out.

What about the issue of eg Tibetan academics as authors of texts that comment on Indian Mahayana or other Early schools? The actual subject is early (eg Nalanda) Mahayana, not Tibetan Buddhism. In fact, what of Nalanda Buddhism altogeher? Chandrakirti was NOT a Tibetan - but he post-dated the East Asian spread of Buddhism. Almost every source we have is from the Tibetan translation projects. When we are citing commentaries on Chandrakirti, are we happy to admit Tibetan scholars as RS? (Oxford/Cambridge and other universities do - but that doesn't mean we have to). (20040302 (talk) 17:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC))

In regards to comments made above concerning the use of older versus contemporary sources, this is in fact a criteria for evaluating sources as reliable, so it is very important to consider. Further, Eliot's comments about the "Far East" are too ambiguous for our purposes, and any judgment about Buddhism from 1935 either needs to be put into its proper chronological context or supported with additional sources. Viriditas (talk) 04:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Let me try to clarify the sorts of ways in which argumentum e silentio makes sense.

As I said above, if a textbook on a subject fails to mention something alleged to be a basic fact, I think that, in common sense terms, is clear proof that that author doesn't believe it to be a basic fact. So it makes sense in such a case for the claim that it is a basic fact to be presented as "according to", even if no source has yet been found explicitly disagreeing with it. Any claim that Buddhism is all about the 4 NT, or anything else, or any particular combination of things, comes under this.

Similarly, many sources say Buddhism is a religion, without saying anything about its also being a philosophy. In the context, you'd expect them to say so at that point if they believed it, so they don't.

More relevantly to the context of most of these discussions, if a source says little or nothing about something, that clearly implies they don't think it's important in their context. Policy says that things should be given prominence according to their prominence in reliable sources. Peter jackson (talk) 10:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Argumentum ex silentio is a fallacy, and we don't use them here. And, to create one based on something a source doesn't say constitutes original research. I encourage you to bring this up on the original research policy page if you think it's a loophole. It can't be done here, and any occurrence of it in the article should be removed immediately. Viriditas (talk) 11:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Argument from silence is only a proper fallacy in the context of pure logic; it is too reductive to call it a fallacy here, and can be a part of valid (abductive) reasoning. The distinction to be made (and Peter seems to have addressed this several times) is whether one can reasonably expect a source to have included the lacking information if it ahd been important to that source. The speculation necessary here is not on the same order as WP:OR, although it still rests on consensus. Reference to WP:UNDUE and WP:N has validity because those policies essentially rest on an argumentum ex silentio, although (again) of a slightly different order – i.e., if reliable sources don't raise something, we must assume as editors (even if it's not so) that it isn't important, until we've found an RS that states otherwise. /ninly_(talk) 15:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Note that none of this would count as OR, because it's not a question of including statements based on such arguments. You simply apply the argument to considerations of NPOV, & particularly WP:DUE. Peter jackson (talk) 10:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

2004, I just registered the distinction you make between disbelief & an absence of belief. I do indeed mean the latter. If a textbook doesn't mention an alleged basic fact on the subject, that implies the author doesn't believe it's a basic fact. I agree it doesn't necessarily imply they disbelieve it. Peter jackson (talk) 11:00, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Now let me have a look at the question of interpretation raised above. This could get really complicated. For example, we were discussing above a/the Gelugpa interpretation of the Heart Sutra. Now there are about 80 surviving Chinese commentaries on the Heart (Macmillan Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Volume One), page 167). In that article it would be reasonable to discuss these (though practicality's another matter: few if any have been translated into any Western language). In this article, it seems to me unreasonable to discuss 80 interpretations of a single page out of 100+ volumes of Buddhist scriptures. It's necessary once again to think about relative importance of various things.

That being so, it's an open question whether any "native" sources are ever going to be important enough to be mentioned, bearing in mind that they are just the sources that the scholars have been studying.

But that still leaves the question of whether Chinese, Tibetan &c interpretations of Indian Buddhism should be mentioned in the section on the latter. My immediate reaction is to say that this would defeat the whole object of the historical arrangement. After all, pretty well everything in non-Indian Buddhism is an interpretation of Indian sources. (The only exceptions that come to mind are some of the Nyingma tantras & a few Chinese "apocryphal" texts such as the Fanwang jing.) Peter jackson (talk) 10:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's the 1st 2 paras of WP:LS.

The lead section (also known as the introduction or the lead) of a Wikipedia article is the section before the table of contents and first heading. The lead serves both as an introduction to the article and as a summary of the important aspects of the subject of the article.

The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources, and the notability of the article's subject should usually be established in the first sentence.

So you need to decide what's important, "according to reliable, published sources". To anticipate the question whether Buddhist sources count here, I'd say, as above, that it probably doesn't matter. There's such an enormous quantity of Buddhist literature around that the emphases of any particular source aren't likely to make much difference, & we're not in a position to study the whole of Buddhist literature for ourselves.

And let me say yet again, as Viriditas doesn't seem to be getting the point: "importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources" is to be established by, among other things, noting how much space they spend on things. If they say little or nothing about something then that's a prima facie case for saying they don't think it important. That particular kind of argumentum e silentio is clearly supported by the above guideline & WP:DUE. Peter jackson (talk) 11:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that isn't true. I suggest you read WP:NOR very carefully. As a core policy, it contradicts your reading of a guideline. If the source does not explicitly say something, you cannot quote something it doesn't say to promote a POV. Stick to the sources, and only the sources, and you'll be fine. There's no loophole in the OR policy for you to exploit. Viriditas (talk) 11:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Policy (WP:DUE):

Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject. This applies not only to article text, but to images, wikilinks, external links, categories, and all other material as well.

An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject.

Are you claiming that the above policy does not mean that aspects of the subject should be given prominence according to "their representation in reliable sources"? Or that the absence of any mention in reliable sources suggests unimportance? Peter jackson (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Peter, you are quoting the NPOV policy, not the OR policy. I fail to see how this separate subject has anything to do with your erroneous claim that you are free to draw conclusions that are not found in the sources. Viriditas (talk) 11:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Try to read what I actually say rather than attack things I haven't said. Peter jackson (talk) 11:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I did. You said: If [the sources] say little or nothing about something then that's a prima facie case for saying they don't think it important. That particular kind of argumentum e silentio is clearly supported by the above guideline & WP:DUE. And, I repeat, Peter, the policies do not support your interpretation of the reliable sources guideline. Your interpretation contradicts the policy against no original research. You aren't talking about undue weight. You were talking about making conclusions about information that does not appear in sources. We cannot add those conclusions to this or any other article. Viriditas (talk) 11:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

And I repeat that the passage I quoted above clearly supports what you've just quoted me as saying. I nowhere suggested adding any information on such a basis, & I said as much before. Please pay attention to what I say & stop attacking straw men. Peter jackson (talk) 12:02, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It's possible you didn't mean what you wrote or I didn't read you correctly. However, I have previously asked you about this before, in the above discussion, and you've said that we can make conclusions about what sources don't say, which isn't true. The undue weight provision has to do with using reliable sources to represent majority and minority opinions, not with what sources fail to report. Perhaps you are using the example of argumentum ex silentio as a metaphor rather than literally? Viriditas (talk) 12:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Let me explain yet again, then. I'm saying just 2 things:

1. WP:DUE clearly implies that the absence or scarcity of mention of something in RSs should be taken into account in determining its prominence in relevant articles.
2. If some RSs fail to say something in a context where one would expect them to say it if they believed it, then common sense suggests that statements of it in other RSs should be reported as "according to", not as unquestioned fact.

Do you disagree with either of those statements? Peter jackson (talk) 14:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with both of them. (1) My reading of WP:DUE (the part that I think you are referring to) says "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject." - so we can state that if no RS make an assertion about something, then neither can we. However, if some texts make an assertion, we cannot then assume that other texts that do not mention the same assertion are either denying that assertion, or are in agreement with it either. As I said before, all we can reliably say is that such texts have nothing to say about said assertion.

If the article mentions that "Scholar Bob telles us 'Buddhas can be green' ", and then the article lists of a set of arbitrary RS which do not say anything on the subject then things could get out of hand.. One may argue that for an RS to be an RS, we should find at least TWO independent sources for a particular assertion. If both Bob and Alice state that Buddhas can be green (and Bob isn't referring to Alice's work), then we could consider it fair enough to consider the text as notable. If Bob is all on his own, then it's much harder. The problem with THAT is that any interpretation whatsoever leads to synthesis, so identifying that two discrete sentences are 'saying the same' is some form of synthesis, unless they are precisely worded the same (which is most likely due to plagiarism rather than independent research).

For me, I think that this thing becomes more relevant when we look at the RL example re. the 4NT. Before my recent edit, the article flatly stated that the 4NT are that they are a preliminary teaching in Mahayana (ref from Harvey). A single counter-example (ref from Garfield) is enough to demonstrate the inefficacy of the statement, so it was rewritten to state that the 4NT are a preliminary teaching in East Asian Mahayana. The problem with that is that it ISN'T what Harvey says, but then as I said before, I am not sure about Harvey as being a RS for Mahayana Buddhism anyway- it's outside his field of specialisation. I would rate Williams more highly regarding East Asian Mahayana.

(2) We cannot get involved with 'expecting' an RS to say something in the context within which we would expect it. The very act of expectation is synthesis or OR. I continue to assert that we cannot use ANY RS as the basis of a statement of unquestioned fact. (20040302 (talk) 19:04, 17 February 2010 (UTC))

I agree with these concerns, but think that the contexts where such an argument would be appropriate are narrower than you are suggesting ("a set of arbitrary RS"). To extend your hypothetical example, if Scholars Bob and Alice, both specialists in Milwaukee Buddhism, mention that "Buddhas can be green", then fine. But if we then survey a dozen scholars on Memphis Buddhism and none of them mention Buddha color or Bob's or Alice's work, we may have a strong case for suggesting that Buddha color isn't important to Memphis Buddhists – it may be speculation, in fact, to suggest otherwise.

As for the real-life example, I don't fully understand the scholarly climate well enough to form an opinion on the above, but definitely think that the variety of characterizations of the 4NT (as suggested in the 4NT discussion above) rule out blanket statements about their importance to all of Buddhism or thier position relative to its other aspects. Such statements make better sense within narrower presentations (whether chronological or otherwise). /ninly_(talk) 22:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

2004 says

I disagree with both of them. (1) My reading of WP:DUE (the part that I think you are referring to) says "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject." - so we can state that if no RS make an assertion about something, then neither can we. However, if some texts make an assertion, we cannot then assume that other texts that do not mention the same assertion are either denying that assertion, or are in agreement with it either. As I said before, all we can reliably say is that such texts have nothing to say about said assertion.

I'm afraid you don't seem to have read what I said either. That's not disagreeing with 1. It's nothing to do with it. 1 is about the prominence given to things. Policy seems to me to imply that this is to be based on the prominence in RSs. So if a lot of RSs don't mention something at all, or spend little time on it then its prominence should be correspondingly reduced.

2004 again:

If the article mentions that "Scholar Bob telles us 'Buddhas can be green' ", and then the article lists of a set of arbitrary RS which do not say anything on the subject then things could get out of hand.. One may argue that for an RS to be an RS, we should find at least TWO independent sources for a particular assertion. If both Bob and Alice state that Buddhas can be green (and Bob isn't referring to Alice's work), then we could consider it fair enough to consider the text as notable. If Bob is all on his own, then it's much harder. The problem with THAT is that any interpretation whatsoever leads to synthesis, so identifying that two discrete sentences are 'saying the same' is some form of synthesis, unless they are precisely worded the same (which is most likely due to plagiarism rather than independent research).

Nobody's suggesting the article should list the sources that say nothing. That might well be a rational thing to do, but I don't think it accords with WP policy. All I said on this was that such silence, in cases where one might expect something, is adequate reason for presenting something as "according to" rather than straight fact. Your suggestion of doing that with every single statement would of course make this point irrelevant, though I don't think such a blanket approach would accord with WP policy either.

As to your suggestion that you need 2 sources, I can only say that it can be hard enough finding even 1. Peter jackson (talk) 09:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Peter, I agree that attribution (according to) is good practice. If we are finished here, perhaps we should archive this discussion and get back to improving the article? Viriditas (talk) 09:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

2004's next paragraph is on an issue of substance rather than the procedural questions we've been discussing here, so it should perhaps go to a separate section. I suggest you don't archive anything until 2004 & Ninly have said whether they want responses to their remaining comments. Peter jackson (talk) 10:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

PJ, okay maybe I misread what you were saying about WP:DUE. Your clarification is easier for me to interpret. When you say Policy seems to me to imply that this is to be based on the prominence in RSs. So if a lot of RSs don't mention something at all, or spend little time on it then its prominence should be correspondingly reduced. I agree in principle, but not entirely. A good example is when there are a group of RS that assert a general statement, and where just one RS makes a counter-claim or demonstrates a counter-example to that general statement. In this case, (we are talking about RS here) the relevance of that RS is made higher by the fact that it demonstrates a meta-state: either that there is a dispute, or certainly that many RS have missed something out. This is the sort of thing that you are very good at (pointing out exceptions to any general rules) so I would be surprised if you disagreed with that.

Eg (sorry my examples are not always good) Scholars A,B,C,D,E all say (one way or another) that Gautama Buddha died over two thousand years ago. Scholar X states that from a religious perspective Buddha did not die, and cannot die. To ignore scholar X would be a mistake, as he adds a nuance to the interpretation of the other scholars, which is well-informed. Scholar Y says that the issue of whether or not Buddha died is a debate that is grounded in faith. I would suggest that Y takes precedence, because he describes the debate that ABCDE do not mention (and may not be aware of). Then ABCDE take precedence because they are a majority of scholars that concur - and then an attribution (according to) Y, pointing out the counter-example / caveat.

In my mind, demonstrating awareness of difference of opinions of a fact indicates a greater precedence regarding an issue than any scholars who take only one side, and ignore/are unaware of any alternative. Does that make sense?

And I am not ready to archive this. I hope to see some form of agreement regarding the manner of editing Buddhism and related articles, in order to stop endless discussions such as above. (20040302 (talk) 17:00, 18 February 2010 (UTC))

I think I agree with everything you've just said. What I said about reducing the prominence of something wasn't intended to mean that space was the only consideration. It's just one of the factors that have to be taken into account.

What you say about the Buddha's death would require interpretation of the contexts in which your imaginary scholars are writing. It's true that the traditional mainstream Mahayana view is that he didn't die but is still around. However, that doesn't count as "history". Scholars who are writing history will say he died, & wouldn't be expected to say anything else. I must admit I'm not entirely clear what WP policy on such matters is. The Resurrection is an obvious parallel, which must have been discussed at great length (no doubt making our discussions look trivial).

The general principle of noticing whether scholars seem to have heard about each other's ideas is one I've often thought about, though I can't remember whether I've ever explicitly mentioned it here. Peter jackson (talk) 17:56, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

As you don't accept Viriditas' suggestion of ending this discussion, I'll end my pause in commenting on your previous comments, which I made in deference to that proposal. Your final paragraph there:

For me, I think that this thing becomes more relevant when we look at the RL example re. the 4NT. Before my recent edit, the article flatly stated that the 4NT are that they are a preliminary teaching in Mahayana (ref from Harvey). A single counter-example (ref from Garfield) is enough to demonstrate the inefficacy of the statement, so it was rewritten to state that the 4NT are a preliminary teaching in East Asian Mahayana. The problem with that is that it ISN'T what Harvey says, but then as I said before, I am not sure about Harvey as being a RS for Mahayana Buddhism anyway- it's outside his field of specialisation. I would rate Williams more highly regarding East Asian Mahayana.

What Harvey actually says is that that's what the Lotus Sutra says. I think in the context he implies that's the Mahayana view, but I suspect that interpretation wouldn't satisfy the strict wording of WP:V. Peter jackson (talk) 18:01, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Garfield's statement that they're essential contradicts the claim that they're preliminary. Preliminaries may be essential, or they may not. It may well be that the Tibetan tradition regards them as such, but the main East Asian traditions don't seem to. You might look at this in terms of sudden and gradual enlightenment. Or you could look at it in the context of the pervading East Asian concern with the decline of the teaching, which results in an emphasis on "simple", "easy" practices, most people being considered no longer up to the fuller ones. Pure Land is just the most radical example. Peter jackson (talk) 18:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

RS is a relative matter a lot of the time. Harvey is a reliable source, but Williams is more reliable on Mahayana. There's a general question here. What do you do if a specialist & a non-specialist contradict each other? Maybe the non-specialist represents the views of other specialists we haven't come across yet. Or maybe they're just wrong. Each case has to be considered carefully on its merits, but common sense suggests the benefit of any doubt should be given to inclusion, with attribution. Peter jackson (talk) 18:24, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

As you mention Williams, I might point out that I had a look at his Mahayana book (2nd edn) yesterday. There are only 4 refs to the 4 NT in the index, & all seem quite brief. Peter jackson (talk) 18:26, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Now a comment on what Ninly says:

As for the real-life example, I don't fully understand the scholarly climate well enough to form an opinion on the above, but definitely think that the variety of characterizations of the 4NT (as suggested in the 4NT discussion above) rule out blanket statements about their importance to all of Buddhism or thier position relative to its other aspects. Such statements make better sense within narrower presentations (whether chronological or otherwise).

The problem about statements within narrow presentations is the difficulty in finding them. How many statements can any of us find about the importance of the 4NT in the various Buddhist traditions? I really don't know how to deal with this. What we're liable to get is something like what we have: a haphazard collection of fragmentary statements, with much left unsaid because we haven't found any RSs that say it. Peter jackson (talk) 18:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Now back to 2004's general proposal. I don't know how literally you intend this. Are you talking about an article where every sentence starts "According to" or similar? It would look rather odd. I do have a lot of sympathy on the issue, though. Peter jackson (talk) 18:37, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

More definite proposal

Okay, outside of the last sentence, I'm pretty sure that we are at a good turning point for a new section.

1. We (the editors of Buddhism and related articles) are all acting in good faith, and are wishing to work towards authoring and maintaining exemplar articles for such articles.
2. We are interested in the subject area, and are capable (at least between us) of finding and evaluating source material (when it exists) that meets our needs for the task.
3. We are aware that the article(s) may never be synchronous with our personal beliefs or those of others, and must not feel disheartened by that.
4. That Buddhism (or any other broad-band subject that covers hundreds of millions of peoples, thousands of years and hundreds cultures) is complex.

We also need to develop

1. A means of identifying RS. Possibly even list regular RS, along with their respective domains of expertise.
2. A strategy of hierachialising RS when addressing a specific topic; this isn't about who is more right, but about things like time, generality, and so on (eg see Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources#currency_of_RSs).
3. We could divide content/subjects into HOT/WARM/COLD - according to the level of attention/disagreement they get. The purpose of this would be to require different levels of attribution for HOT subjects, and far less attribution for COLD ones. If there is no dispute about the phrase "Buddhism is a religion and philosophy", then it is COLD, and (until discussion comes along) doesn't need an attribution to it.
4. The structure of the article reflects a timeline, with the earliest stuff at the top.

Something that begins to go like that gives everyone a GOOD idea about what we have already developed a consensus about. IE, if we cannot develop a consensus about the article, let's first get a consensus about authoring the article! (20040302 (talk) 20:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC))

Procedural discussion

The wording of your last paragraph seems to imply that you think there's already a consensus, which seems a bit premature.

I hope you don't mind my reformatting your remarks for clarity.

Your hypothetical example under 3 is counterfactual. If you ever have the time to red back over the archives of this page, you'll find that, every so often, someone turns up & vehemently insists that Buddhism isn't a religion. &, every so often, someone turns up & vehemently insists that Buddhism is a religion. It might be quite amusing if they turned up simultaneously. And so far we've found 1 living scholar who says it's a philosophy & 1 who says it's not. Everyone else just ignores the idea. Peter jackson (talk) 11:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Given that the wording above says "Buddhism and related articles", that would make sense. Let's see what 2004 has to say. I get the impresion this is more thinking aloud than a definitive proposal. Peter jackson (talk) 10:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, point 4 in the 2nd list looks to be specific to the Buddhism article. Peter jackson (talk) 11:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

PJ, yes my points were thinking aloud, but I am proposing an authoring policy, and as a strategy, point 4 in list 2 could be a strategy for many Buddhism articles. My belief is that if we have a consensus on policy, then endless arguments about if Buddhism is a religion and whether the 4NT are core, and whether or not Pratītyasamutpāda means everything is interconnected, and a gadzillion interpretations of emptiness, nirvana, karma, etc. could possibly dissolve. If we can find a policy that helps alleviate this, then it should be highlighted at the top of every relevant talk page. (20040302 (talk) 11:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC))

Yes, some projects use a FAQ heading with a list of the most common questions and answers. Viriditas (talk) 11:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I think 2004 means putting a link to the policy, though maybe FAQ is another possibility (in addition, or instead). Peter jackson

I think people are liable to be put off by such a long discussion and never actually reach the proposal, so I've added subheads. Peter jackson (talk) 10:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Excellent - thanks PJ. (20040302 (talk))

Substantive comments

Reliable Sources

Some editors (who are used to my excessive verbiage and have the time) may be interested in my discussion regarding reliable sources at Reliable Source - Or Reliable Content. One of the particular items that may be interesting is the development of a procedure for being able to achieve an updated list of Reliable Sources over a specific domain. Certainly we must reach some sort of consensus about whether scriptures (Sutra, Vinaya, Tantra) may be considered as reliable sources (regardless of whether they are primary sources or not), and our reasoning must be non-contentious. The same question will need to be applied regarding Śāstra (traditional commentaries). (20040302 (talk))

The basic principle is that Buddhist writings are RSs for statements about themselves, but are not RSs for statements about whta any other Buddhists believe. You could say this scripture says this, this writer says this. In principle. But in practice this is liable to be a biased selection out of the vast quantity of Buddhist literature in existence. Peter jackson (talk) 17:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Interesting discussion there, MMIV. Funnily enough, I had the Nat. Enq. example in my head just a few lines before getting to your mention of it (of course, counterexamples have equal potential – consider Lancet's recent retraction of the article linking autism to vaccinations; not to claim any views on that controversy, but that well-reviewed and -regarded RSes have their slip-ups, too). I wonder whether it could be useful for the project here to have a subpage list of sources, somewhat like you discuss with Barnaby except: a) specific to our scope, and b) with minimal editorial commentary or overview of each source's scope, its usefulness, and possibly its weaknesses (reached by consensus, of course). There are problems with this, and it could easily get out of hand given the vastness of scriptural sources, but it could be a very handy research tool. Peter's user page is an distinct but interesting take on this notion, as well. /ninly_(talk) 05:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Procedural comment. I've just been having a look at WP:RSN. They say there that consensus there will actually be enforced by admins. Peter jackson (talk) 17:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Peter, can you be more explicit in that reference? Currently the only significant use of the word 'enforced' I could find is made by BlueBoar: you should know that consensus here is not something that can be enforced, which appears to be exactly the opposite of what you are saying? (20040302 (talk) 09:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC))

I was referring to comments made on the actual page. I can track them down for you if you like, but after mentioning it here I then asked on the talk page, where the replies make it moot. Peter jackson (talk) 10:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Currency

As a general rule, within acknowledged reliable sources, more recent sources should be considered more reliable than older ones. (20040302 (talk))

Scholarly division

Sources that mention a division of views are to be considered more reliable than those that are unaware of such a division, or only mention one side of that division. Evidence of division (eg two scholars stating contrary views) maybe mentioned as "Opinion differs regarding..." with proper reference to the division of said scholars. Anything more analytical may be deemed Original Research. It maybe necessary for a consensus to be reached that the two references do indeed indicate a division. (20040302 (talk))

If I understand right, you're talking about disagreement about whether sources disagree. If some editors think sources contradict each other, it seems reasonable to suppose that some readers will do so too. If an article states both as facts, they will find it odd. This suggests that the default should be "According to". Peter jackson (talk) 10:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

There's no default. We need to weight the merits of the claim(s) and the corresponding sources. If we are dealing with majority viewpoints, there's nothing to attribute inline, unless we are referring to a specific opinion or belief. Viriditas (talk) 11:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not clear what you mean here. Peter jackson (talk) 18:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Re-scoping of reliability

When establishing reliability of a source regarding a specific issue, it may well be that the source is considered reliable only for a specific domain. That domain may be considered to be broad until evidence is demonstrated that subsequently shows lack, conflict, or division. Eg, we may establish that Scholar A is a reliable source for Buddhism-related articles. Later it may be found that the scholar is ignorant of some Mahayana schools of thought and therefore misses some nuances made by another expert, so the reliability of the scholar then needs to be adjusted to take that into consideration, but it does not eliminate the scholar as a reliable source elsewhere (eg in Theravada articles). . (20040302 (talk))

I don't think it's yes or no. Such a source would be regarded as less reliable, not unreliable. Peter jackson (talk) 17:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we need to closely examine Peter's beliefs on this subject. For starters, Peter claims that "Buddhist writers aren't reliable sources for the views of any other Buddhists." (See User:Peter_jackson#Reliable_sources) Peter goes on to redefine the concept of reliable sources that is used on Wikipedia. This is a symptom of a larger problem. The definitions and agreements that the community is working with are at odds with those of certain editors. Viriditas (talk) 12:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Peter jackson (talk) 17:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I'm not so sure about this, Viriditas. For one thing, I think Peter's comment here is entirely reasonable: we don't always need to completely discount a source's ability to address a particular domain, just give it due weight (as it were) – it's more reliable when it comes to issues within Theravada than in Buddhism as a whole.

While I have always agreed with your concerns in principle and your insistence on the WP editing process – and I very much appreciate the work you're doing for these articles – I think you have at times taken Peter's concerns out of the spirit in which they're intended. It's worth noting that he never actually edits articles; he only ever raises questions, many of which I have found compelling, about whether our views and writing on Buddhism can fairly account for its global complexity, its inaccessibility to Western casual readers regardless of our beliefs (sources in languages we don't read, large bodies of adherents whose beliefs may not be covered in any source, etc), and the unavoidable skew in POV that Western practitioners of an Eastern religion necessarily display. These are not easy questions to address, and WP policies can be blunt (though certainly useful) tools in addressing them, particularly on such topics. While RS and so on are clear guidelines, they are not perfect, and my impression, for the most part, is that Peter's contributions are very much in the spirit of NPOV, not at odds with it. /ninly_(talk) 18:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you have to be careful here. There are a variety of criteria you can use in assessing reliability:

1. reputation of the publisher: this is actually the primary criterion mentioned in the policy
2. reputation of the author
3. reputation of the book: reviews in RSs, mentions in recommended booklists (maybe there's another argumentum e silentio here: if nobody's bothered to review a book & nobody reommends it, maybe it should be downgraded)
4. date: separate heading for this already
5. specialization: on a question about say Chinese Buddhism, a book about Chinese Buddhism is more reliable than a general book about Buddhism, unless the/an author happens also to be a specialist in Chinese Buddhism

Peter jackson (talk) 10:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Several things - as I understand it, there really is no blanket reputation for publishers; this is very much a consensus decision depending upon context. I totally disagree that if a book is unreviewed that we should discount or downgrade it (PJ, really, there is no place whatsoever for Argumentum ex silentio on WP. You will never achieve a consensus on that. Drop it. Move on.) - instead we must review each source on a case-by-case basis, giving as much weight to that review as is necessary in terms of the centrality of it's claims.

Likewise, I am not yet convinced that there is a restricted list of varieties of criteria against which sources may be assessed. However, the list you have here is a great start.

I totally agree re. specialisation; I would go on to say that indigenous scholarly books written within the context of their own traditions may be deemed as reliable within their context also. For instance, if Candrakirti says the opposite about the Madhyamaka to something which some modern paper says about Madhyamaka, we must allow for Candrakirti's counter-example to be used as a demonstration of counter-example. Of course a more recent scholar would be preferable. Even better, one that describes the division. (20040302 (talk)

Well, if you mean that a publisher may have different reputations for different sorts of books then I agree. But the basic principle in WP:V & WP:RS is that a reliable source is from a publisher with a reputation for fact checking. Peter jackson (talk) 10:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what I think your last para is saying; indeed I've said as much myself a number of times. Peter jackson (talk) 10:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

On the subject of such sources, here's another way of thinking about it. At the religion project, someone recently asked what the difference was between theology & religious studies. My answer, which someone else agreed with, was that

1. theology is an activity taking place inside religion
2. religious studies look at religion from the outside

Thus, in the context of this article, Candrakirti & co are part of the subject, they're not writing about it. Therefore I'm not sure whether my previous opinion, restated just above, is correct. It may well be that for this article to cite Buddhist writers to show that scholars have missed something might count as original research. Similarly for the Madhyamaka article. But in the article on the Heart Sutra, say, it might be more reasonable to mention "native" interpretations. Or maybe not. I'm not at the moment clear how the policy is to be interpreted. Peter jackson (talk) 10:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Heh. Interesting. However, I think that we must acknowledge reflectivity as a completely valid activity. Take Christian theology. Now remove every single Christian. So certainly, where it is clear that a scholar is involved in commentary, or peer-review, or any other reflective activity, we have to allow for them (currency being understood as desirable, if not necessary, of course). All I am saying is that if eg (this is a fictional example) Keown states that Madhyamaka is solely concerned with phenomena, and Candrakirti says that Madhyamaka is NOT solely concerned with phenomena, then we have some good reason to cite Candrakirti's statement, and possibly also review Keown's reliability regarding that particular specialisation. Of course, it may well be that Candrakirti's 'phenomena' and Keown's 'phenomena' are very different things, so all we can do is to note the distinction, not make judgement on it. (20040302 (talk))

I agree that that's reasonable. I'm just not clear at present whether it accords with policy. Thinking about this does make clear that RS is liable to be a rather complex concept. Peter jackson (talk) 10:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Having just reviewed the relevant policies & guidelines I'm still unclear. Wikipedia: Reliable source examples#Religious sources does (at least partly) support your position, but that's only an "essay", so seems to have no authority. Peter jackson (talk) 11:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I just read that also. I think it's reasonable and precedented enough for us to adopt regarding WP Buddhism policy. We can always revisit that later if we must. Likewise, I cannot see any justification for rejecting ancient/indigenous sources out of hand - indeed it's possibly more likely to involve a systemic bias if we did. (20040302 (talk) 12:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC))

However, I wonder whether it would be original research for WP editors to carry out their own book reviews in deciding the weight for a source. Is it permissible to say a book gets this, this & this wrong, so its weight on other (related) matters should be reduced? Peter jackson (talk) 10:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's an interesting point - one that I have raised myself elsewhere and at other times. As I recall, the general response is "That's what concensus is for" - ie, consensus is the mechanism by which sources are identified as reliable, and it is those sources from which WP articles are constructed. Different analyses are welcome, of course. (20040302 (talk) 09:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC))

That is indeed what consensus is for, in the sense that WP procedures lay down that that's how policy is to be interpreted. In practice this means that the editors on a particular article can make policy mean whatever they want it to mean, as there's no effective enforcement system. It would be different if a large posse of neutral editors descended on a dispute, studied it carefully & reached a sensible decision, which were then enforced, but that isn't what happens. This connects back to comments above about RSN. They claim that it's consensus there that counts, not consensus in particular articles. But if nobody's prepared to enforce such claims they're just empty bluster. Peter jackson (talk) 10:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Two (or more) independent reliable sources are always better than one

If two or more reliable sources independently make a statement about something, then that statement may be considered more reliable than any other single source. Due to the fact that correlation involves some form of interpretation, consensus over that correlation may be required. (20040302 (talk))

Article Structure

It may not always be possible to structure all Buddhism-related articles in a similar manner, but PJ mentioned earlier the idea of using timeline as a basic structure. I believe that is a very good structure to follow, in that it's intuitive, easy to understand, and dissolves any arguments regarding 'importance'. (20040302 (talk))

Timeline isn't what I suggested. I pointed out that scholarly textbooks on Buddhism tend to be arranged more or less historically. History isn't the same thing as annals or chronicles. The commonest arrangement seems to be something like this:

1. India
2. Theravada
3. East Asia
4. Tibetan Buddhism
5. Buddhism in the modern world

Although I described that as historical, you might alternatively think of it as more or less geographical, treating 5 as referring to the West. Peter jackson (talk) 17:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Peter, I get your point. I would really like to see some start / end dates for those headings. Here are some questions.

1. Does India stop in the 12th C CE, or does it carry on to the modern era?
2. Is it right to, eg., conflate China, Korea, Japan, etc into East Asia?
3. If we are to use the term Buddhism in any heading, we should do it in all headings.
4. Where would any inter-relation between these groups go?
5. What about other areas, such as Nepal (which is distinct from, but heavily related to the Tibetan traditions)?

I agree to the sections in principle. My understanding for their rationale is that their ordering represent the point in time at which texts from India were translated. Maybe a better approach would be:

1. India (Vernacular)
2. Theravada (Pali - from Vernacular)
3. India (Sanskrit - from Vernacular)
4. China/Korea/Baekje (Chinese from Sanskrit)
5. Tibetan Plateau (Tibetan from Sanskrit)
6. Japan (Japanese from Chinese)
7. Mongolia (Mongolian from Tibetan)
8. Modern Era (European languages from Pali/Sanskrit/Chinese/Tibetan/Mongolian)

Okay - I see there maybe some issues there, and maybe my breakdown isn't accurate (forgive me, it's intended as an illustration only). The nice thing about languages though is that it's clear to identify which language a text is in, whereas it may not be so clear to identify which tradition adheres to it. My purpose is to find methods that will reduce editorial arguments. (20040302 (talk))

I've changed your 1st list to numbers for reference.

1. This varies. Some books deal ith the revival of Buddhism in India at the end of the India section. Others put it under Buddhism in the modern world.
2. They're not usually conflated. Mostly, the East Asia section is subdivided into chapters on China & Japan, + maybe Vietnam &/or Korea.
3. The headings as I gave them were just mnemonic.
4. It usually goes in the late of the 2. That is, the section on China will detail its relationship to its Indian background. Likewise, the Modern section will explain background in other traditions. As you mentioned,there was very little interaction between the 3 main branches.
5. Nepal is a bit of an anomaly. It's often just ignored, maybe on the ground(s) that there aren't all that many Buddhists there anyway &/or it's a bit decadent (the monastic order died out centuries ago & Sanskrit scholarship in the 19th century). Bechert & Gombrich give it a chapter at the end of the India section, which seems reasonable to me. Newar Buddhism (as against Sherpa Buddhism) seems to be basically a continuation of late Indian Buddhism, little influenced (before modern times) by Tibet.

Peter jackson (talk) 10:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Now we've got another possibility, classification by language. This has the advantage that this is how scholarship tends to be structured. A few points that occur to me:

1. A lot of Sanskrit literature survives only in Chinese &/or Tibetan.
2. There's actually a lot of Theravada vernacular literature. Likewise Vietnamese & Korean.

Peter jackson (talk) 10:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with those points. And of course some scholars assert that some of the Sanskrit Sutra 'translations' into Chinese are contrived. However, even if we agree that much Sanskrit literature only survives in translation I would say that as a general rule early Buddhist scholars really did make a strong differentiation between what is authored in the (local) language, and what was translated into it. What I would call "Sanskrit" above is what is in sanskrit or is translated from sanskrit. Also, most scholars are careful to delineate the sources of secondary translations, so normally this should not be a problem.

In consideration, I think I prefer the language classification over the region classification - I feel it is less contentious. I also consider that thematically adopting some strategy that's based on historicity is better, but we must be careful: eg Would Candrakirti's 9th century Sanskrit comments be placed before or after a chinese scholar's 8th century thoughts? (20040302 (talk))

Fast Reverts

When any editor makes a change or amend to an article that is disputable or changes the substantial meaning of the article, it is polite to make some reference to that change in the talk page. In many cases it is polite to propose the change on the talk before making any change to the article itself. When the change is substantial, is not backed with cites or references that meet WP:V / WP:RS, and does not include any reference in the talk page, should it not be reverted? I pretty much think so, but maybe it's far too draconian of me. (20040302 (talk))

Early Dispute Resolution

There is really little point in discussing doctrinal points on WP without WP:RS to back up one's position. I am very guilty of this myself. Any argument for or against a change in the Buddhism-related articles should also be referenced. Any sources used MAY go through some form of RS evaluation. Consensus is both desirable and necessary. (20040302 (talk))

Statement of fact vs. 'according to'

Due to the very large scope that Buddhism covers, and due to the fact that this area covers the belief systems of hundreds of millions of living adherents, it is important to be particularly careful when making a statement as a fact, "Such and such means this", rather than a (much safer and less controversial) attribution "According to Smith, such and such means this", On the other hand, having to attribute every sentence makes an article extremely hard to read. Therefore when we have at least two independent reliable sources making the same claim (see above), and as long as there is no counter-example, then the claim may be stated as fact. (20040302 (talk))

I don't agree with the last sentence. As I pointed out above, I think argumentum e silentio is important here. If other RSs fail to say the same thing in a context in which one might reasonably expect them to do so if they agreed with it, then it should still be "According to". Peter jackson (talk) 17:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Disagreement noted for the record. Core policies are clear on this point: we can only write articles based on the source material. We cannot justify using argumentum ex silentio in any article, nor can we make novel claims based on what sources don't say. Using attribution ("according to") wisely is encouraged, but it is not necessary to attribute commonly held beliefs or demonstrable theories which are widely stated as facts. For example, it is not necessary to attribute the claim that the Buddha was born and raised in what is today considered modern Nepal. Peter, when we talk of attribution on Wikipedia, we mean that all of our content should be found in reliable sources. That means we can't entertain an argumentum ex silentio unless the sources have already made the same logical leap. Peter, your proposal to use "according to" without reason is often a recipe for disaster. The guideline on avoiding weasel words shows what happens when it is used incorrectly. In this way, using "according to" without good reason can be used to introduce POV. I ask 20040302 and Peter jackson to both give examples illustrating their points, keeping in mind that the project proposal should stick closely to how we use sources about Buddhism, not how we attribute them. The WP:NPOV policy covers this in detail, and Peter might also want to look at WP:MNA. One reason we don't need to use "according to" in the text at all times, Peter, is that we are focused on writing about major points of view. Yes, it is helpful to refer to schools of Buddhism and their major proponents, and to attribute movements and concepts to their adherents. But, if other RS fail to say "the same thing", then we must ask why and investigate first; We don't simply assume that both sources are on equal footing as you are proposing. I've noticed in the past, you've made this argument when comparing different types of sources, which tells me there's still some confusion about how we use them. That needs to be cleared up first. We need to be focused more on improving articles, not on arguing for minority points of view or for using old sources that reflect ambiguous opinions. Viriditas (talk) 00:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Viriditas, I hear you and will have a go shortly. Peter, regarding the 'argumentum ex silentio' issue, can you find any explicit reference in wp:policy or wp:guidelines that suggest that such a mechanism is allowable? Otherwise by the very argument of "argumentum ex silentio", we must conclude that "argumentum ex silentio" is not allowed. (20040302 (talk))

Example for Viriditas (not using real refs because it's a talk page). "According to Garfield (ISBN 0195093364, p294) the four noble truths are fundamental Buddhist tenets". H.Saddhatissa says (ISBN 004294094x, p34): "The basis of the Buddha's philosophy is the Four Noble Truths". So, until there is a counter-example (see above), the sentence may now be written as factual: "The basis of Buddha's philosophy is the Four Noble Truths(ref Saddhatissa)(ref Garfield)" (with full cites in the footnotes). (20040302 (talk))

We would not need to use inline attribution for a statement that describes the FNT (Suffering; The cause of suffering (craving); The cessation of suffering; The eightfold path to the cessation of suffering). Sources are agreed (for the most part) on what the FNT are or are not. In other words, there are no competing descriptions, but because we are dealing with translations, certain words are disputed, such as suffering. Dukkha could also mean unease, unsatisfying, discontent, etc. One could even argue that suffering is a mistranslation. I think it is easy to accommodate these concerns, but the problem arises when you go beyond a basic description of an idea and make a sweeping statement about "the basis" of Buddhism. If the best sources are agreed upon the idea that "the basis of the Buddha's philosophy is the Four Noble Truths", then it would be acceptable, unless we can point to sources that say otherwise. It would also help to review more than two sources to come to this conclusion. I am interested in hearing Peter's rebuttal. Viriditas (talk) 10:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I've already pointed it out several times. You can find several sources quoted at User:Peter jackson#Four noble truths (more context at User:Peter jackson/Archive#Four noble truths) and others at User:Peter jackson#Diversity. Summary:

1. Harvey says they're the Buddha's advanced teachings, so only part, not the whole.
2. He also cites the Lotus Sutra as saying they're only a preliminary teaching (this can obviously be verified from the source). Again, only part, & not even the most important.
3. Cousins repeats 1 for traditional Theravada, quoting a stock passage from the Pali Canon.
4. Eliot says they're little known in the Far East. This can be corroborated by looking at the indexes of books on the subject, & primary sources, & seeing how little they have to say on it.
5. Cousins, Cox & Gethin (Harvey mentions this as an alternative) all say they're things, not statements; i.e. there's not an agreement on wht they are.
6. A number of sources clearly state that they &/or some other scholars don't accept the idea that the different forms of Buddhism have a common core; so in particular they'd not accept the idea that the 4 NT are such.

Peter jackson (talk) 11:10, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Edit conflict. This post was written before the next one, and doesn't refer to it.

"But, if other RS fail to say "the same thing", then we must ask why and investigate first; We don't simply assume that both sources are on equal footing as you are proposing."

But I'm not proposing that. I agree entirely we have to "ask why and investigate first". That was intended to be implicit in my phrasing "in a context in which one might reasonably expect them to do so if they agreed with it".

You ask for examples. I have no actual examples to hand. As you see above, I think there are plenty of sources that disagree about the 4 NT, so this particular form of argumentum e silentio is not needed here. The other form can affect the question of prominence, though. If lots of RSs spend little time on the subject &/or don't say it's important, then it seems reasonable to reduce its prominence accordingly.

Similarly, I don't actually need it on the question of Buddhism being a philosophy, because I've already cited a source that says it isn't. But the silence of most sources when they say it's a religion but don't say anything about its being a philosophy as well suggests the philosophy view shouldn't get too much prominence. Peter jackson (talk) 11:25, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Peter, please start with Eliot. That is hardly a useful source here so I don't know why you keep bringing it up. He makes an ambiguous aside about the FNT in 1935. What does the Far East refer to here, Peter? Could you please support the older Eliot source with a contemporary one? If you can't, what do you think that means about whether we should use Eliot here? As for bringing up the common core claim again, could you please also bring up one contemporary secondary source that makes this claim directly? Just a simple, brief response will do. Viriditas (talk) 11:22, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

First, Eliot. As I explained earlier in some discussion, it can be very hard to find explicit source statements that something is not important, because sources tend to spend most of their time on things that are important. Peter jackson (talk) 11:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Then I will take your non-answer as an admission that we can discount Eliot. This also means you will not bring it up again. Can we move on? Viriditas (talk) 11:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Stop talking such rubbish.

Peter, that sounds to me like an attack. (20040302 (talk))

The policy is WP:NPA, no personal attacks. It's perfectly OK to attack what people say. Peter jackson (talk) 17:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Now, on the common core question, I have repeatedly referred you & anyone else interested to the quotations on my user page, & repeatedly copied the quotations to the talk page, & you repeatedly ignore them & repeatedly demand I cite sources. Please read WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Peter jackson (talk) 11:31, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Since you cannot answer a simple, direct question about the common core, I will take that as an admission that we can discount that as well. So that leaves Eliot and the common core claim out. Now that we have addressed both questions, please do not bring up Eliot or the common core items again. Viriditas (talk) 11:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It's no good just saying I haven't provided sensible answers. Anyone who bothers to read what I've said can judge for themselves. Peter jackson (talk) 11:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Moving on to Harvey, can you corroborate his claim about the advanced teachings with another contemporary source? I believe I previously pointed out that reviewers described certain portions of Harvey's book as "unique" and representative of his own research rather than what is generally accepted. In other words, is it accepted by the majority of sources that the FNT are only advanced teachings? Viriditas (talk) 11:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

How would you tell? Most sources don't say anything one way or the other. As I pointed out above, Cousins says the same thing about traditional Theravada, & quotes a passage from the Pali Canon in support. Peter jackson (talk) 11:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

That's precisely the point. Peter, we really need to stick with improving the basic structure of Buddhism topics rather than going from source to source cherry picking statements and synthesizing them together to promote a POV. It would really help if you could choose one aspect of the problem, focus on it, and improve it. There is far too much discussion on the article talk page about detailed minutiae that isn't important rather than what is. We really need to prioritize our time and our tasks. I really appreciate that you are digging into dozens of sources to pick out sentences that you think are important, but we should concentrate solely on what the majority of sources say and go from there. Viriditas (talk) 11:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"If most sources don't say anything about it, then why are we saying it and more importantly, is it important to say it?" But you're the one who seems to want the article to say lots about the 4 NT & their being important. What I'm saying is that, looking at the sources as a whole, they're not as important as you seem to think.

It's you who are picking sources that support a POV. I'm the one who's pointing out that there are loads of sources that disagree.

"what the majority of sources say" But how do you tell? And the majority of which sources? The majority of Buddhist writers popular in the West, who pretty all belong to Buddhist modernism? The majority of encyclopaedia articles written by people who know nothing about the subject, based on misunderstandings of out-of-date sources? Peter jackson (talk) 12:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Peter, if you have a source you want to use about a particular aspect of Buddhism, and if that source is notable, it will have been cited by other authors. That's one way to ascertain what sources say on the subject. There are many others. You say there are "loads of sources that disagree", but when I ask you for one you refuse to provide a single source. And, when you do finally provide one, it consists of some guy from 1935 making an ambiguous statement about the "Far East". Same thing with the common core, Harvey, etc. You can't just cherry pick words from this source and that source. Find one that talks about one aspect of Buddhism, and concentrates on it; Contemporary journal articles are one way of doing this, as are specialist books about a single Buddhist topic. That way, when you are asked to support your view, you can point to a current source that deals only with one topic, in depth, rather than a few words here and there. Have you had a chance to look at other tertiary sources, like the Encyclopædia Britannica, and compare their article on Buddhism to ours? The difference is that their article makes sense and is easy to read and understand. Now read our article. Finally, compare sources. EB isn't cherry picking sentences. They are writing from a broad understanding of the topic, using the most current sources (and established authors) they can find. Why is it that I can read their article and understand the topic instantly, but when I read our article, I can barely understand a word of it? Viriditas (talk) 12:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay - hang on. Maybe my example was too topical. I was trying to illustrate how these things would take place with an example, not re-awaken the 4NT debate. As I pointed out above, such a factual statement would only be allowable if there were no counter-example, and more to the point, if it was not contentious. Clearly the fundamentability of the 4NT is a contentious issue, and needs it's own discussion. But that should be on the relevant talk page. The purpose of THIS talk is to discuss a development of a policy to aid us in arriving at consensus about these things. (20040302 (talk))

It's contentious because Peter doesn't understand how to use RS to write articles. Viriditas (talk) 12:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Viriditas that sounds to me like an attack. (20040302 (talk))

Regarding these attacks, just stop. I am not sure that I understand the issue here; maybe we can break it out into smaller digestible pieces and deal with them separately? Can one (or both) of you provide me with a (separate/combined/either) list of bullets that concisely describes the issues on which you differ in a manner which is NOT accusational, please! So write about your OWN convictions in a manner which would highlight the difference of opinion. (20040302 (talk) 16:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC))

It's not advisable to ask people involved in controversies to summarize each other's positions. Viriditas has persistently misstated mine. You haven't been entirely clear what you want here, so the following is a guess (numbered, not bulleted, for reference).

1. Buddhism is extremely varied (a whole pile of citations at User:Peter jackson#Diversity).
2. Virtually all Western Buddhists belong to a particular, modernist variety of Buddhism (citation at User:Peter jackson#Western Buddhism).
3. Most WP editors in this field are either Western Buddhists, or Eastern Buddhists with similar ideas.
4. Most Buddhist writers popular in the West belong to this type of Buddhism.
5. In order to get a properly balanced picture of Buddhism as a whole, it's necessary to work mainly from scholars who've studied a much wider range of sources. This is all I'm trying to do.

Peter jackson (talk) 17:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Peter, thanks for that list. I actually disagree with all but the first of them. I find that very interesting. I am not sure what you would call "Western Buddhism" or "Modernist Buddhism", unless you mean "secular Buddhism" (ie, a set of views that do not require faith in the continuum of consciousness, and therefore are 'this life only') - in which case I would possibly agree that many West European/American converts/adherents are secular Buddhists, (though many of them don't call themselves Buddhist either). (In East Europe there is Kalmykia). Alternatively, maybe you mean syncretised Buddhism (as found in the FWBO), I would suggest that such groups are a minority. Most of the remaining (West European - all I can really talk about with experience) groups are orthodox, or as orthodox as one could expect for a transposed tradition.

Most of the European (and the few American) Buddhists I meet - and I meet quite a few from various different groups and traditions - I would call deeply orthodox. It's interesting that you should cite Keown - I know Damien personally, as I do several other contemporary scholars.He is bright and affable enough. I particularly remember watching him (we were much younger then) literally run away in terror during an introduction to self-grasping. it was so cool - he had begun to actually see it. (20040302 (talk))

What I don't really buy at all is that WP editors share similar ideas. If that were true, we wouldn't have reams of arguments. Maybe what you are saying is that there is a systemic bias found in Buddhist WP editors. I would still disagree. I believe that many non-culture Buddhists (ie Buddhists who were not born into a Buddhist culture or micro-culture - I don't like the term 'Western', it's not geographic, and it doesn't mean much any more) have chosen Buddhism because they (or their families) are strong questioners. Buddha famously tells us to personally assay his words rather than take them on faith. I am aware (before you tell me!) that in East Asia this may not be the case for many, such as in the Nichiren and other Lotus schools.

I do not buy that the modern era is substantially changing every tradition either. I am sure that there are some differences, but I am not at all convinced by your theories that especially Japanese Buddhism has itself changed it's doctrines, behaviours, or teachings in light of modern scholarship or new communication channels. I would need to see concrete evidence on a case-by-case basis.

What I would probably totally agree with you is that converts / non-culture Buddhists are far more aware of Buddhism and Buddhist doctrine than lay cultural Buddhists. But this is no surprise for any religion. It takes considerably more energy to choose a new religion than it does to be born into one.

For me there is no "modernist kind of Buddhism", and therefore the next two points are invalid (ie, I would disagree that most WP editors belong to it, and that most popular writers belong to it). In fact it seems to me that the entire concept is rooted in an assumption which is at complete odds with your first point (which I agree with very strongly).

The fifth point is a tricky one. The more one generalises, the more one has a tendancy to miss out nuances and specialisations. Just as you may wish to discard Korean or Mongolian Buddhism as being not distinct enough, so does the generalist work. The problem with this is when they make an assumption or generalisation for which there is a strong counter-example. Actually, I believe that you are pretty much an expert on counter-examples, so this should not be too much of a surprise to you. (20040302 (talk) 09:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC))

Have you read User:Peter jackson#Modern Buddhism? You might find answers to a lot of your questions there. Peter jackson (talk) 10:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have read your stuff there. But I believe that you concoct something-from-nothing also - WP:SYN. I am aware of what DT Suzuki was up to, but many of his early students wanted to get back to a far more orthodox Zen, and did so. I am aware that the US - especially the coastal states suffers more strongly from re-invented Buddhism than elsewhere; as a friend (a published American Buddhism scholar) said to me the other day, who wants to be an insignificant student when you can set yourself up as a major teacher? I do get your point (this isn't some anti-PJ stance of mine!) But I'm not really convinced that this group of cites demonstrates a substantial or meaningful trope that can be synthesized so readily. The Sri Lanka case is more complex: To be fair we would need to look at the colonial aspect of this, especially with development of 19th C scholarship, and institutes such as the PTS, many members of which were disillusioned Christians coming face to face with Darwin, Kant, and so on - from which they sought a re-imagining of religion that was rational, grounded and so on. But this case is completely different from the post-war Japanese situation, or even the aspects of Chinese Buddhist scholarship, and until someone publishes, it's WP:OR. Meanwhile, of course, the Tibetan diaspora had not happened yet, so outside of frauds such as Lobsang Tuesday Rampa and some terrible translations by Evan-Wentz (still fascinating enough for Jung to get all excited) there was little impact on Western attitudes - I would say that the Tibetan diaspora only began to have an effect on modern scholarship since the 1980s. Of course I am aware of the FWBO, and I would agree with you that they are definitely "Modern Buddhism". (20040302 (talk))

I believe that your quote from Faure A "pure" Buddhism free of "superstition" is a modern invention is completely meaninglesson it's own, and probably does more damage than good to your collection/argument, unless more context is provided. Actually, Faure is not writing in a scholarly manner in his introduction, and provides no source whatsoever. There is an implied context tenuously limited to the US (see preceding paragraph). Maybe he sources these claims in the text itself - I wouldn't know, I have only read what is available on Amazon, but it doesn't stand on it's own, and I would certainly consider it to be an opinion requiring attribution. Due to the lack of any sources, (he refers only to one text, which he says is particularly orthodox), I would not consider the introduction of that book to be a WP:RS. (20040302 (talk) 10:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC))

As we're not discussing here the question of what any article should say on this, your remarks about RS & OR are not so relevant. Back to basics: Keown & Prebish, ed, Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Routledge, 2007, page 286:

... the emphasis on modernist Buddhist elements has become characteristic for the very vast majority of Western Buddhists.

Peter jackson (talk) 10:55, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Peter, thanks. I find our discussions difficult at times, and inspiring at other times. Regarding RS/OR, I would say that they relevant if we use such cites to guide us in policy authorship. If we are merely having a discussion about whether or not "modernistic Buddhist elements" (whatever they are), are characteristic of most WB, I have to state that I personally am completely unconvinced by Keown/Prebish's assertion on it's own. Do they provide any evidence of data gathering? I assume that they have spent hundreds of scholarly pages deciding on what exactly "modernist Buddhist elements" are and how we can identify them, but then how did they go about establishing that these elements are characteristic of WB? What was the size of their population sample? What were the geographical boundaries? Or is it just an unresearched assertion? I totally agree with you that modern Buddhism is incredibly diverse. More diverse than most people imagine. That diversity does not allow for sweeping statements as found in Keown/Prebish,

Okay, let's look at one specific item for example. Existence of eg Yaksha, or Naga. How would one begin to identify which Buddhists believe that they exist, and which ones believe that they are mythological. Even within traditional Buddhism, predating any modern era, many Buddhists were unsure of their existence, so maybe that's not such a good example. How about rebirth? Though some Buddhists assert that if you reject the continuity of consciousness (an entailment of which is rebirth) then you reject the Dharma and therefore cannot be a Buddhist (not being able to take refuge in the triple gem). Does Damien include rejection of rebirth as a modernist Buddhist element? Personally I (and my colleagues) call Buddhism that avoids such questions of karma and rebirth "Secular Buddhism" - because there is no need for any faith - such practices are for this life only. Maybe one could gloss secular Buddhism as being what you mean by "Modern Buddhism" - but I would counter-claim that there are plenty of self-attributed Buddhists who do believe in these things, and also who believe in all sorts of other weird ideas which aren't exactly Buddhist either (crystals, dowsing and singing bowls, etc. come to mind). Let's agree on diversity. I am not sure we can agree on this idea of "Modern Buddhism". (20040302 (talk) 11:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC))

The passage cited is talking about emphasis. Therefore it's not a question of putting people into watertight categories. The other passages give quite a few examples of things that are more emphasized in modern/modernist/Protestant Buddhism, & of other things that are less so. Do you deny that most Western Buddhists do in fact put correspondingly more or less emphasis on those things? That doesn't mean that every single one of them places correspondingly more or less emphasis on every single one of those things. It's a matter of overall balance. The balance of emphasis of most editors of this article is different from that of Buddhism as a whole. Peter jackson (talk) 11:55, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I deny it. I don't buy it. Especially McMahan's ideas. I consider the text extremely reductive at best. Of course I acknowledge that there are some anti-ritualisitic aspects made by some teachers (and their students) "Cutting through Spiritual Materialism" is one text that comes to mind. But such works and teachers have had limited audiences and limited effects. I think that one of the most significant issues of modernism may be found regarding the treatment of the Vinaya. Some have been radical (eg Thich Nhat Hanh, or the NKT) and have completely revised the Vinaya, but there has been significant backlash regarding such movements also. I don't really buy the whole 'protestant Buddhist' line either; maybe that's because I don't know many former protestants who became Buddhists. Who knows. I think that I can safely say that for every former-protestant Buddhist I know, I know of a former-judaism Buddhist, a former-catholic Buddhist, and so on. Moreover very many Western Buddhists (including myself) were brought up in Buddhist households with orthodox beliefs (and I am - maybe a 200th generation immigrant - certainly so far back as to be able to safely claim that I am indigenous). So I just don't buy it. As I implied earlier, without any clear definitions or evidence gained from sociological studies using well-defined methodologies across sizable demographics of specific populations, these claims made by you, Keown, McMahan or anyone else are spurious. (20040302 (talk))

I'm not sure you understand the meaning of the term "Protestant Buddhist". It doesn't mean a Protestant converted to Buddhism. It means a Buddhist with an attitude similar to the Protestant one, e.g.

1. claiming to return to the alleged original teaching & rejecting a lot of tradition
2. rejecting a lot of ritual & "superstition"
3. upgrading the laity & downgrading the clergy

You seem to be rejecting what reliable sources say, without even citing any who disagree, just like Viriditas. However, though we can get bogged down in detail if you really want, for the moment I'm going to return to the basic point.

Are you going to claim that Western Buddhists really are representative of Buddhists as a whole?

1. That a large proportion of them are Pure Land?
2. That Western Theravada is the same as traditional Theravada?
3. ditto Zen?
4. ditto Tibetan Buddhism?

Or are you even going to claim that Western Buddhists are representative of Buddhists now?

1. That Pure Land is virtually extinct?
2. That other schools have evolved virtually throughout the East into the forms found in the West?

No? Then will you accept that there's a systemic bias in the editor pool? And in the selection of Buddhist literature familar to that pool? And that the only sensible way of dealing with that is by following policy & relying mainly on reliable 3rd-party sources, i.e. outside scholarship? Peter jackson (talk) 10:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Statements of Belief that (may) affect any WP:Buddhism Policy

1. I believe that argumentum e silentio has NO place in Wikipedia unless it is explicitly asserted in WP:Policy or WP:Guidelines. (20040302 (talk))
2. I believe that a WP:Buddhism Policy is both useful and desirable (20040302 (talk))
3. I believe that regular editors of Buddhism-related articles
   1. seek consensus (20040302 (talk))
   2. know how to be civil and know that they should be civil. (20040302 (talk))

Again, I've changed you to numbered for reference.

1. I disagree with 1. There's certainly such a thing as necessary implication without explicit statement. If 25% of the RSs on a subject spend 20% of their time on a particular topic within that subject, & 75% don't mention it at all, then it should have 5% of the space in the article, ceteris paribus. That variety of a.e s. is a necessary implication of WP:DUE.
2. The other type is a matter of common sense. Maybe this is a case of WP:IAR, which is also policy. If you compare it with WP:5P, it seems that the spirit or principles of core policy can override the details.
3. You talked earlier of consensus, stability & avoiding endless arguments. In this light, & in the light of WP:CON & NPOV looked at together, maybe it would be in accordance with the spirit of policy & of some of your thinking to have 2 defaults:
   1. include, not exclude, sources & views
   2. "According to", not bald assertion

Procedural comment. Most of what both of us have said is not peculiar to Buddhism, but applies to all controversial subjects. Perhaps it should be discussed at the policy page(s) instead. Peter jackson (talk) 18:10, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see this as a controversial subject. If you do, perhaps it is because you make statements using implications rather than stating what the sources actually say. For example, at User:Peter_jackson#Tolerance you say "about 1,811,000 Christians have been martyred by (Mahayana) Buddhists" and claim it is related to the topic of "tolerance". When asked to explain and support this statement, you say, "The source is simply 2 tables in the WCE, not a prose text I can quote word for word. The table of Christian martyrs, totalling 60,000,000 I think, includes an entry for Christians martyred by Mahayana Buddhists. It seems to be implied that few if any were martyred by Theravada Buddhists." Why is it that I can't find this in any reliable secondary or even broad tertiary coverage of the subject? Could it be because you are doing original research in your user space and arguing for inclusion in main space? When asked why it is there to begin with, you say that you are trying to "counterbalance Buddhist propaganda". Am I wrong to say that you don't understand how we use RS? Viriditas (talk) 20:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

2004 has asked you to stop arguing like this. As you persist in doing so, I must reply.

Since when has a publication by one of the world's leading universities not been a reliable source? The policy mentions them as the very 1st, so presumably best, RSs.

I certainly wouldn't attempt to explain how you use RSs. Peter jackson (talk) 14:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

There is significant criticism about the source at World Christian Encyclopedia. Nevertheless, my concern as stated above was how you used the source, not about the source in particular. Do you recognize my concern? You added content about the subject of "Buddhist tolerance" to your user page. The problem is that the WCE does not accurately reflect this content nor the topic itself, and when asked simple questions about it, you couldn't answer them. Viriditas (talk) 01:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't see any sensible point you're making. Peter jackson (talk) 10:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you do see it. Viriditas (talk) 11:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Argumentum ex silentio

I have opened up a section at WP:NPOV to discuss this. Although my views are well-declared, I do think that some of Peter's arguments are reasonably challenging enough for this issue to be raised more centrally. My intent is solely to come to some better understanding - you may wish to take part, hence my notification here. (20040302 (talk) 10:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC))