Talk:Buddhism/Archive 12

This is an archive of past discussions about Buddhism. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

←

Archive 10

Archive of discussions

the discussion page uses 218 KB, it should be archived. — Esteban Bodigami Vincenzi 16:23, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. /Archive 18 created. Viriditas (talk) 10:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

recent edit to lead by 198.170.193.28

I reverted this edit. Although it seems not totally unreasonable to insert some qualification of who Siddharta Gautama was, i'm not sure if this really belongs here. Also qualifying him as "Indian" bears some problems (discussed that a couple of times before). Also i looked at the contributions of this IP: the editor seems to be primarily focused on inserting the word "india" into various articles and some of his other edits create the impression that he's generally editing from an indian nationalistic WP:POV. Can somebody else maybe take a look at his contributions as well? Andi 3ö (talk) 19:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Path of salvation

Where did "path of salvation" come from, right up there in the lede? Salvation seems to me a fairly solidly Christian concept. Buddhism is all about suffering, the understanding of, letting go of, avoidance of, compassion for, conquest of, maybe 'deliverance from'. Surely "path of salvation" is at best some well-meaning, 19th-century missionary's mistranslation of the Pali or something? --Nigelj (talk) 11:57, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

It's just Latin for being saved. Why shouldn't you be saved from suffering? But it's true that a lot of stuff in the lead is unsourced. Peter jackson (talk) 12:12, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

A lot of stuff in the lead is not unsourced, and somebody added the bit about salvation without good reason. Viriditas (talk) 00:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that 'salvation', whilst etymologically decent in meaning, is too much accociated with a skewed Christian view. 'Deliverance' or liberation may be better and more descriptive.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 22:05, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is to follow reliable sources, not the personal opinions of editors. I can certainly find you RSs that use this term (if I remember right, Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism is one). How common this is would be harder to determine.

Another point that might be considered here is the talk of a path. Buddhist paths seem so varied such language might be inappropriate. Peter jackson (talk) 11:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Once the article gets going, towards the end of the second sentence, with talk about 'teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama,' etc it's really very good. It's just that very first bit. For a long time no-one was happy whether it was either a 'religion' or a 'philosophy'. Now it is a path of something, and both a religion and a spiritual philosophy. I think we established that in the big list of world religions, it has to be there, so it is a religion. But I'm not happy with it being spiritual - the etymology of that word is simple enough, and I don't think there is much of a pantheon of spirits in most Buddhist teachings. Again that is a Christian concept, what with the Holy Spirit, and all the other angels, saints and whatever that surround a good Christian. I think Buddhism, after you get beyond it being a world religion, is a practice and a set of teachings. These basic phrases can easily be well sourced, and I think all the other (home-made/semi-Christian) cruft in the first sentence and a half should just be cut. --Nigelj (talk) 22:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, in a sense you're right. Traditional Buddhism recognizes loads of gods, but most of them are regarded as having bodies of subtle matter, so technically they aren't sprits. However, that's not what spiritual(ity) is generally supposed to be about. Then again, I don't think any scholar would say Buddhism is a philosophy anyway. I don't agree that it's very good. It's inaccurate, biased & confused. And much of it is "home-made", to borrow your felicitous phrase. That is, it's just the personal opinions of various editors, which is not what an encyclopaedia is supposed to be about. Peter jackson (talk) 14:40, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Peter, Buddhism is first and foremost a philosophy, and it is rooted in the Indian philosophy from whence it came. The symbol of the dhammacakka represents the primary starting point for this philosophy. I'm not sure where you are getting these ideas about Buddhism, but they aren't true. The number of scholars describing Buddhism as a philosophy, is very high. And they mostly describe it as a philosophy of a path of becoming. Viriditas (talk) 23:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with PJ, I think that the opening section as it is is reasonably good now. It could be better sourced no doubt, but far from reflecting the personal opinions of editors, it reflects scholarly, academic and traditional opinion acurately. Everything in the opener can be referenced and should be in due course as they are all claims made quite often amongst scholars. I wonder if PJ could point out any part of the lead that he feels is not representative of scholarly or traditional views? As far as I can see, the lead is now an accurate description of how the Buddha's teachings are interpreted by the tradition itself as well as in popular understanding of it as a religion.

As for the term 'spiritual', again it is one that has been problematic for a while now, yet a better single descriptive term seems beyond the capacity of the English language. Perhaps 'practical philosophy' may be a better term, yet that too has its issues. As such, 'spiritual philosophy' however inadaquate a term may still be a reasonable option.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 19:41, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It may be that you can find all those statements in "reliable sources". The problem with WP's verifiability policy is that RSs often aren't all that reliable. In particular, they often contradict each other. This fact is barely mentioned in the policy page. Perhaps WP simply doesn't want to draw attention to this flaw. So finding these statements in RSs isn't the end of the matter. I can go into detail if you really want, though the rate of change of the text often makes comments out of date. You might want to have a look over my user page to start with.

In particular, to keep to the points we've been discussing above:

As I already said, I don't think any scholar would call Buddhism a philosophy. The only citation anyone's posted here, as far as I can recall, is a general encyclopaedia, i.e. a non-specialist source. (Of course I'm ignoring Buddhist sources, as they're not reliable sources for Buddhism as a whole, only for the views of the authors & their associates.)
Against the description of Buddhism as a path, I can cite Carl D. Olson, The Different Paths of Buddhism, Rutgers University Press, 2005

"how the Buddha's teachings are interpreted by the tradition itself as well as in popular understanding of it as a religion": I may be misunderstanding your point here, but it looks as if you may have been misled by teachers of Buddhist modernism into supposing that their teachings are the traditional ones & everything else is "ignorant peasant superstition" or something of the sort. See User:Peter jackson#Modern Buddhism for a whole pile of detailed citations on this. Peter jackson (talk) 11:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's the actual wording of the Conze citation (page 15): "In its origin and intention a doctrine of salvation, Buddhism ..." It might of course be questioned whether a book published in 1951 is appropriate. Peter jackson (talk) 12:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The Conze reference is actually not appropriate or correct - I do think that using the term 'path of salvation' is framing things from a Christian point of view that is not fitting. I have replaced it with a reference from Prof. Dr. H.V. Glasenapp, where he specifically mentions that the Buddha's teachings, like the Upanishads, teach of attaining to the true natire of reality via 'liberation through insight'.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC).

What the new source actually says is, "The number of passages in the Pali canon dealing with Upanishadic doctrines, is very small. It is true that early Buddhism shares many doctrines with the Upanishads (Karma, rebirth, liberation through insight), but these tenets were so widely held in philosophical circles of those times that we can no longer regard the Upanishads are the direct source from which the Buddha has drawn" (my emphases). That seems fairly negative and restrictive to me in a few ways. I wouldn't regard that as a cite that supports the definition of the whole of Buddhism by the current phrase. Nothing about a path, nothing actually about 'insight into the ultimate nature of reality.' I don't think the current phraseology is terribly wrong, just evidently home-made, made-up by us, and I'm surprised we can't do better. Same with the uncited thing about 'spiritual philosophy'. --Nigelj (talk) 22:22, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The new source clearly states that the Buddha's path is one of liberation through insight, also a view that the Upanishads taught. The use of the term 'path' is perfectly correct. The phrase says, 'Buddhism as traditionally conceived is a path', and it is indeed traditionally presented as 'the eightfold path'. Therfore both elements of the sentence are accurate, and not 'made up'. In actual fact they are the traditional definitions. The last part about attaining to the ultimate nature of reality can also be referenced. There are no doubt other sources that support the phrase, but the current source also states: "Only the indefinable "Voidness" (sunyata) to be grasped in meditation, and realized in Nirvana, has true reality." Also "Nirvana is a reality which differs entirely from all dharmas as manifested in Samsara"

Insight into 'the ultimate nature of reality', is an appropriate way of describing this. It is also a term that I have come across many times before as used by scholars, the entire lead could do with more sources but at least the beginning section is accurate and has been sourced.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 10:08, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the point (or a point) Nigel is making is that the source is referring only to early Buddhism, or the original teachings of the Buddha. This is quite a different concept from the subject of this article. "Buddhism" means what Buddhists think the Buddha taught, not what historians think.

It's wrong, or at least misleading, to say that Buddhism is traditionally presented as the 8-fold path. It's not even accurate to say that the Buddhist path is traditionally presented this way. Even in Theravada the 8-fold path is traditionally the path from stream attainment to arahantship. The Visuddhimagga presents the path in terms of sila, samadhi & panna. The 8-fold path is even less mentioned in Mahayana literature.

The general point is this. Wikipedia isn't supposed to work by editors selecting sources, reliable or otherwise, that support their personal opinions. The idea is to find out what reliable sources as a whole say & report that. What most of them say is that Buddhism is a religion. Peter jackson (talk) 11:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually if that is your perspectivbe it is a mistaken one. Wikipedia is about finding reliable sources that support reliable views. It is not about simply generalizing. There are many sources that speak of Buddhism as religion, and also many that do not. Hence our purpose should be to reflect the different sides of the main views fairly. To only speak of Buddhism as religion would not be fair to the alternate ways it has been viewed, or the many scholars and practitioners who do not regard it as such.

I also must say that I fail to see your sense of logic regarding Buddhism traditionally being presented as a path. In Theravada it is very much presented as a path. This is becasue reference to the Pali literaure comprises a huge aspect of Theravada, and the eightfold path is very much a well known core aspect of that teaching. I can't think of any Theravidin who wouldn't be familiar with the conception of Buddhism as path. Again, it may be less emphasisied in Mahayana but it is still there. Even if this was the case, it wouldn't contradict the claim that Buddhism is traditionally considered a path, even if this was mainly in the Theravada tradition. Again, do you have any useful suggestions that you feel are prefereable?

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 12:28, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The sources are very clear. Buddhism is a philosophy of a path of becoming that is practiced as a religion. Viriditas (talk) 00:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Within Theravada particularly, Buddhism is always conceived of as a path. The eightfold path is central to the Pali Canon. The highly influential Visudimagga treatise that has been used as a main reference for 1500 years in Theravada, is also translated as "the path of purification". The earlier Vimmutimagga is translated as 'the path of freedom". It is quite clear that path, in one form or another is central to Theravda conceptions of Buddhism. To suggest otherwise would be ludicrous. As for Mahayana, remember that the traditional Canons (i.e. the sutta's) are all present in Mahayana as well, The Chinese Agama's and the Tibetan translations of Sanskrit Canons are all present within Mahayana, and although they took a back seat to the later doctrines, they are still very much a part of the tradition. The path description would be known to Mahayana practitioners as well.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 10:16, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is about finding reliable sources that support reliable views." I don't know what you mean by this. Who decides what's a reliable view? I don't see the term in the policy pages anywhere.

"To only speak of Buddhism as religion would not be fair to the alternate ways it has been viewed, or the many scholars and practitioners who do not regard it as such." The only scholarly source I know of that doesn't regard Buddhism as a religion is Robinson et al, Buddhist Religions, 5th ed, Wadsworth, 2004, page xxi, which regards it as a family of 3 religions. Who are these "many" scholars who don't regard it as a religion?

As to practitioners, there are 3 important points to be made here:

they aren't experts on Buddhism as a whole, only on their own version of it
they aren't experts on concepts such as religion & philosophy
they're biased; sociologists say all religions include people who deny they're a religion in order to differentiate themselves from the rest, to claim superiority

To mention their views without these points would be biased & misleading.

"it wouldn't contradict the claim that Buddhism is traditionally considered a path, even if this was mainly in the Theravada tradition." I disagree. I think many readers would understand "traditionally considered a path" to mean so considered by most of the tradition.

However, the main point about path is that I've already cited a scholarly authority who clearly regards Buddhism as containing a variety of paths. Peter jackson (talk) 11:10, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

On the subject of 'path', there is ample evidence that has been refered to regarding the conception of path. I can only advise that you re-read the section above, and think about it more. The path conception is present in all schools of Buddhism.

As to your other points, an example of one more scholar is the one I have referenced already, Prof. Dr. H.V. Glasenapp, who says at the beginning of the article that "Vedanta and Buddhism are the highlights of Indian philosophical thought." There are many others, especially those who do nto regard it as religion according to how that term is understood commonly in the west. As to your comments about 'practitioners', that is very much a generalization and simplification. "Practitioners aren't experts on concepts such as religion & philosophy" - how do you know? Have you met and worked with all the practitioners, including thopse who practice meditation as a psychological exercise, and questioned them about their credentials? So because someone calls themself a 'scholar', that is enough to get your unchalleneged confidence in them, and make sweeping unsubstantiated comments about practitioners. This type of generalized categorical thinking is most naiive.

And do you really think scholars are not frequently biased? They are coming from a westernized framing of religion for the most part, and carry their preconceptions with them. Sociologists also speak of those who like to categorize groups of people in broad terms, such as calling them 'religious', 'fundamentalist' etc , as this gives them a feeling of separateness and superiority. Maybe food for thought?

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 17:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Oops. I just removed the sentence in question here without reviewing this discussion. However, I don't see anything above that justifies this as the first sentence (or any part) of the lead paragraph – It constitutes a strictly POV characterization of Buddhism. See my further explanation in the "Practical Philosophy" section below. /ninly (talk) 03:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Remarks below addressed to KV, "you" to be understood so.

A book by Glasenapp originally published in German in 1954 was published in English in 1970 under the title Buddhism: a Non-theistic Religion.

Either he approved this title & so regards Buddhism as a religion
or he's long dead & the value of his opinions is questionable.

I never questioned that "The path conception is present in all schools of Buddhism." It's also present in Christianity &c. So what? That's a long way from saying Buddhism is a path. And I remind you yet again that I've already cited a scholar who talks of "the different paths of Buddhism".

"those who do nto regard it as religion according to how that term is understood commonly in the west". Well, that's a point that has been made in scholarly sources. I might be able to find one. Perhaps you could say "usually regarded as a religion, though not in the usual Western sense". But don't overdo this point. If you visit Buddhist countries, you can see people

visiting special, fancy buildings, where they
bow to statues,
present them with flowers,
burn incense,
listen to talks by people with funny clothes & hairstyles
engage in, or listen to, chanting, often in dead (or even non-existent) languages
&c

"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck."

How do I know they're not experts? Does it matter? Do you think Wikipedia policy is that every crackpot is assumed to be a reliable source until proven otherwise? On the contrary, the burden of proof must be the other way.

Yes, of course scholars can be biased. Nevertheless, Wikipedia policy is to assume otherwise until evidence is provided to the contrary from other scholars. Peter jackson (talk) 10:44, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Glasenapp obviously regards it as a philosophy, as evidenced by his quote saying that "Buddhism is the highlight of Indian philosophical thought", and also as a non-theistic religion, which would fit the defintion of 'religion, though not as this is usually considered in the West'. This is my view, that it must be referred to as both religion and philosophy, as this is undoubdetdly how it has been characterized. To only refer to it as 'religion' would be profoundly misleading, especilly since this is not 'relgion' in the usual western sense. Similarly to only mention the practical phiolosophy, would not include the religous aspects that have developed such as going to temples and ritual etc. To mention both is therefore the only acceptable conclusion.

However, only comparing it with 'religion' in a broad sense is again misleading. The vast majority of people regard chsristianity and Islam as faith based religions. If you asked the average person, or the average scholar I would say 99.99% woould respond that these are religions. Buddhism on the other hand is not based on faith, and it is well known to both academics and laypeople that it is 'not religion in the usual sense', or it is usually characterized as a 'way of life', or a 'philosophy'. Labelling it is clearly no easy task. The broad scope and overlap of Indic religions and philosophies makes simplistic categorization that may apply to faith based Western religions redundant.

Rememeber that it is on the content of what the individual is saying, not on their 'status', that we judge the validity of thir argument, based on what we know from studying a wide variety of different sources. To restrict yourself to the views of a small group of scholars from a small area of the globe viewing things from a limited western scholarly perspective is not representative of the full picture, and will not result in a balanced view. For example, a large number of these western scholars are practicing Christians. So by your argument, their views should be disregarded, as they are biased, and viewing things from within a framework which renders their opinions partial and invalid on the topic of religion and philosophy. Who then is left for you to be citing as giving non biased opinion?

Another scholar who characterized Buddhism as philosophy and religion is Ninian Smart, who included Buddhism in the beginning section of his book 'World Philosophies', under 'South Asian philosophies', he calls Buddhism "one of the two main streams of tradtional Indian philosophy".Of course, he also includes it in his book on 'world religions. He states that "Buddhism is one of the great religions (and philosophies) of India". Clearly this is territory that shcolars have gone over extensively, and reached the conclusion that the best way of describing it is as both philosophy and religion.

Christianity by contrast is never characterized as being one of the wests 'great philosophies'. It is always regarded as religion. It is safe to say that your view that Buddhism is generally seen as purely a 'religion' is entirely POV and unsubstantiated, and clearly goes against the traditional, scholarly and practicing views all of which regard it as both 'religion' and philosophy, or containing elements of both.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 11:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Policy (WP:SOURCES): "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available"

It's no good endlessly asserting that your view is the generally accepted one without providing proof. The fact is that there are vast numbers of sources saying Buddhism is a religion, & you haven't yet cited any that say it isn't, though I've mentioned one that says it's 3 religions. On the other hand, you've so far supplied 3 scholars saying it's a philosophy as well as a religion. At least 1 is dead, & 1 is a non-specialist. To treat the 2 views as equal violates WP:DUE, as I said below. Peter jackson (talk) 12:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

More policy (WP:REDFLAG): "Certain red flags should prompt editors to examine the sources for a given claim:

surprising or apparently important claims not covered by mainstream sources;
reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character, embarrassing, controversial, or against an interest they had previously defended;
claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or which would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living persons. This is especially true when proponents consider that there is a conspiracy to silence them.

Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality sources." Peter jackson (talk) 15:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Still more policy (WP:DUE): "

If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article."

There's no definition of prominent, but are the dead to be considered as such? All 3 of the scholars you cite are dead (see Wikipedia articles in English for 2, in German for Glasenapp (which also makes clear from the Germn titles of his publications that he regarded Buddhism as a religion)).

Suppose you can find some prominent adherrents. Then you might end up with something like "Buddhism is usually considered a religion, though not in the usual Western sense. Some scholars consider that it is also a philosophy, but also not in the usual Western sense. Peter jackson (talk) 16:04, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

"Buddhism on the other hand is not based on faith": KV above.

"... traditional Buddhism, where faith is preliminary to practice.": Mitchell, Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 2002, page 259.

"Most traditions of Buddhism consider saddhā, 'trustful confidence' or faith, as a quality which must be balanced by wisdom, and as a preparation for, or accompaniment of, meditation.": Harvey, Introduction to Buddhism, Cambridge University Press, 1990, page 170.

Peter jackson (talk) 16:12, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

"... Buddhists ... usually consider themselves to be followers of a religion ..." (Chryssides & Greaves, Study of Religion, Continuum Press, 2007, page 13)

"Essentially all religions have adherents who claim that their religion is not a religion. ... [examples, including Buddhism] ... For the sociologist and for the statistician (as for most people [this also stated for Buddhism in Silk, paper in Numen, volume 49, 2002, reprinted in Williams, Buddhism, Routledge, 2005, Volume III, page 403]), these are all religions. Claims about not being a religion are pithy slogans contrived by people inventing a new definition of "religion" for the express purpose of emphasizing the benefits of their particular religious preference."([1]).

Elsewhere on the same website it gives lists of religions "described most often in surveys of the subject, and studied in World Religion classes", "the religions most likely to be covered in world religion books" ([2]) & "most described used [sic] in contemporary comparative religion literature" ([3]). Buddhism is in these lists

It must obviously be true that most people consider Buddhism as a religion, because that's what most dictionaries, encyclopaedias & books about religions say. How could they think otherwise? Peter jackson (talk) 16:18, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Buddhism's Daily Lives

Buddist live lifes of sacrfice. Always looking for ways to give in the God. They have lots of religious holidays. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.142.92.107 (talk) 23:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Dubious?

A statement has been tagged as dubious. Here's the exact wording of the source cited.

"With very few exceptions, Chinese Buddhists accept that the chances of attaining enlightenment so complete that it guarantees one an exit from saṃsāra through the unaided strength of one's own practice are very slim, and that one must have Pure Land practice as a kind of insurance policy, regardless of what other practices or scholarship one does. Thus, Pure Land thought and practice pervades [sic] all of Chinese Buddhism as the guarantor of the path one treads toward Buddhahood." (Damien Keown & Charles S. Prebish, eds, Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Routledge, 2007, page 611)

The same or very similar wording appears in the Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism, presumably written by the same contributor.

In support of this, here's some material from a field anthropologist who studied Chinese Buddhism 1st hand.

"Since we are living in the age of the decay of the dharma, it is difficult ... to reach nirvana here through our own efforts. Therefore most Buddhists in China prefer to get the help of Amitābha by reciting his name ... (Holmes Welch, Practice of Chinese Buddhism, Harvard University Press, 1967, pages 89f)

"Before 1949 the goals of most Chinese Buddhists could only be called otherworldly. A few sought release from this world through nirvana, but the great majority, since nirvana was too difficult to achieve in our degenerate age, sought it through devotion to the Buddha Amitābha. That is, they hoped that after death they would not have to be reborn in this world of suffering but would be accepted into the Pure Land ..." (Holmes Welch, Buddhism under Mao, Harvard University Press, 1972, page 288)

Practical Philosophy

The term 'practical philosophy' seems far more appropriate than 'spiritual', and the term no doubt has some merit to being used. I think that even this does not do justice by fully describing the Buddha's teachings, but it is at least more fitting that using the term spiritual. Practical philosophy encompasses the elements of putting ethics into action, living with wisdom and reflecting on daily life, all elements anyone familiar with Buddhism will recognise.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 10:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

This again is just personal opinion, which is not what Wikipedia is supposed to be about. That's what blogs are for. Peter jackson (talk) 11:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the use of the term 'spiritual philosophy' is preffereable? And you are again wrong as this is not personal opinion, it can be referenced. I must also say that you seem fond of criticizing but seemingly quite lacking in ability to provide suitable alternatives or suggestions. So I repeat, what are you suggesting as a more appropriate alternative, and why?

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 12:14, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I suggested earlier that the the first sentence and a half should just be cut:

Buddhism is a world religion practiced by between 230 million and 500 million people.[4][5][6][7]. It is based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...

That allows us also to lose a short para lower down in the lede that gives the numbers. 'Less is more' seems to me the way to go. --Nigelj (talk) 15:42, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Nigelj, I'd love to see a much less convoluted lead sentence, as you suggest (the "as traditionally conceived" clause really throws it overboard, in my opinion), but I fear that cutting so much won't go over well in the long run—that's for a lot of reasons that are borne out in the archives of this talk page. Still, I think your suggestion is a major improvement to the intro. As to the original issue (spiritual vs practical philosophy), I think there's some miscommunication here.

I don't think "personal opinion" fairly describes K&V's suggestion; practical is a characterization of Buddhism that I've seen among some practicing Buddhists and in Buddhist writing, and one which is quite valid in a certain sense. However, I don't think that usage of the word practical really jives with the connotations understood by a broader readership. Conversely, I think the word spiritual, while it could be validly criticized (from a Buddhist perspective) in its application to Buddhist cosmology, is probably better understood, in this context, by a general audience. In short, people talking about spirituality aren't always referring to a spirit, or any spirits. It's a word that refers broadly to religious and/or cosmological belief, and as such certainly, if not perfectly, comprises the wide variety of Buddhist thought. /ninly (talk) 18:34, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't make clear that both versions are mere personal opinions. Here are a couple of scholarly sources on Buddhism as philosophy.

"it would be inadequate to define Buddhism simply as a philosophy, a way of life, or a code of ethics. It includes all of these things" (Keown, Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 1996, p 14)

"... we should not continue to keep Buddhism in that category of being just a philosophy and somehow above these more rough-and-tumble forms of religious life." (Lewis & Lewis, Sacred Schisms, Cambridge University Press, 2009, page 82)

I don't know of any present-day scholar who'd call Buddhism a philosophy. The late Professor Conze did so in the book cited above, but even he qualified this by saying (page 15) that it's not in the usual Western sense, i.e. presumably the sense in which most readers of this article would understand it.

What am I suggesting? Some time ago those of us around at the time had some such wording as "Buddhism is usually considered a religion". What's wrong with that, or something similar? It's obviously true, & even cited, & it clearly implies there are other views. The details could be discussed in a section called What is Buddhism? or The nature of Buddhism, which nobody got round to writing. Peter jackson (talk) 11:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Currently, it says, "It is a religion or spiritual philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to..." What's wrong with this? Viriditas (talk) 00:12, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

That's not too bad. However, I think it should be the first sentence ("Buddhism is a religion or spiritual philosophy encompassing..."). In fact, the more I look at the current first sentence, the more strongly I feel it should be removed, primarily on NPOV grounds. Calling Buddhism a "path of liberation" first and foremost, and then going on to make unqualified denotational references to "insight" and "the ultimate nature of reality" only make sense from certain specifically Buddhist perspectives. And all this occurs before either of the words religion or philosophy. Furthermore, the reference cited (Glasenapp, Helmuth von. "Vedanta and Buddhism: A comparative study") contains neither of the quoted phrases.

Boldly, I'm going to remove it now. Thoughts? /ninly (talk) 03:06, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think removing the sentence entirely is justified. It is of value to mention what the tradition presents itself as, not merely what scholars think it is. We are not saying that "Buddhism is a path of liberation through insight", we are saying that from the point of view of the tradition itself, this is what it is regarded as being. And I do think that putting this definition first is warranted. It defines what Buddhism means to 'Buddhists' / practitioners, which is ultimately what comprises this thing called Buddhism.

Secondly, the phrase is not pov or unqualified. It is in the cited source on 'Vedanta and Buddhism'. I mentioned it already but I can mention it again, the specific characterization of it as 'liberation through insight' is mentioned, in the section of the artice labelled (1). Furthermore, I mentioned in the above section that 'ultimate nature of reality' is a way of decribing what the insight practice is aimed at. The same source by Glasenapp mentiones why this, saying that "Only the indefinable Voidness" (sunyata) to be grasped in meditation, and realized in Nirvana, has true reality."

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 09:48, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Viriditas, what's wrong with it is that it gives equal prominence to the mainstream view & a fringe view, contrary to WP:DUE.

KV, how can you know what the tradition presents itself to be, unless scholars tell you? If there were an organization to which all major Buddhist denominations were affiliated, then its official pronouncements could be treated seriously. But there isn't. (Similarly, the World Council of Churches represents only a minority of Christianity.) Suppose you yourself have read a vast amount of Buddhist literature in Pali, Chinese, Tibetan &c & can confirm this. That would still be banned from Wikipedia as original research. So any such statements must be sourced from scholars who've been published in reliable sources, that is, those whose publisher has a reputation for fact checking. Peter jackson (talk) 10:52, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

First of all, path is a metaphor; liberation (implying bondage) is another, and bound up with Buddhist assumptions about the world; insight is highly value-laden in this context, implying that Buddhists have insight that others lack. Referenced or not, this is simply not encyclopedic writing.

"It defines what Buddhism means to 'Buddhists' / practitioners, which is ultimately what comprises this thing called Buddhism." — this is actually a misconception, from Wikipedia's perspective. What Buddhism means to Buddhists is only one POV on what Buddhism is, and it's a necessarily biased one. That's why we defer to reliable peer-reviewed sources in documenting encyclopedic content. Of course, it's difficult to decide, at times, which sources are the most reliable, and all notable views should be represented, but (almost paradoxically) Buddhist writing cannot be the primary resource for a definition of buddhism, and its characterizations can't come first (except where they agree with other points of view).

I really think that for encyclopedic purposes, the presentation given in WP's article on religion fairly sums up what we're talking about in this article. That is, I really don't think readers are misled by the word. Granted, the religion article doesn't use the word philosophy, but contrary to what you say above, every major religion has produced its share of philosophical thinkers, many of which have gone on to deeply influence the theology/cosmology of the religion. While this philosophical tradition may have played out differently in Buddhist history, to say that it stands alone in the importance of its philosophy strikes me as more of the sociological phenomenon to which Peter refers. While the religion article admits that it's an extremely difficult thing to define anthropologically/sociologically -- but the article on Buddhism is not the place to work out that definition. /ninly (talk) 19:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

The more I read here, the more I am convinced that creating a one or two-sentence summary of what Buddhism is, is a hopeless task. In the absence of any Pope of Buddhism to define it for us, whatever we write will contain undue WP:WEIGHT or be WP:OR. If we base it on Western scholars, that's only their Western, scholarly view; if we try to represent 500 million practicing Buddhists' views, it's hopeless. I suggested 'Buddhism is a world religion' as I hoped by that term to imply the sociologists' meaning of the term - just something to label the axis of a bar-graph - rather than stir up the debate about the meaning of 'religion'. As for talk about paths, liberation, insight etc. I would leave it out of the preamble - we are not here to teach or to convert. Get straight to the incontrovertible facts as I suggested above:

Buddhism is a world religion practiced by between 230 million and 500 million people.[4][5][6][7]. It is based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha... (then continue into existing text)

I see we have moved closer to this in the article already, but I still think what we have is too ringed in by the remnants of these arguments and is not so clear, while saying nothing more than my simpler version. --Nigelj (talk) 19:58, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I strongly support this as the article preamble. /ninly (talk) 20:12, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Let us be clear about the sociological argument that PJ is trying to make based on his one quote froma sociologist that "all religions contain people who deny their a religion". Whilst the Christian tradition and the Islamic tradition have produced philosophical thinkers as one would expect, this is in stark contrast to the situation with Buddhism, where 'Buddhism' itself has been decribed by scholars as a philosophy, as well as producing further philosophical thinkers.

Religions such as Christinaity may well contain the odd individual who prefers to think of his religion as being something other than religion, such as 'a relationship with God'. This again contrasts with Buddhism, where scholars outside of Buddhism call it a philosophy. So we are talking about two different phenomena. Ninian Smart, who was one of the worlds leading experts on comparative religion and philosophy is quite clear when he states (p12, World Philosophies , N. Smart) that Buddhism is "one of the two main streams of traditional Indian philosophy". The attempted sociological argument therfore does not hold up at all, unless you want to make the claim that "scholars also like to deny that religions are religions". The Glasenapp quote is also unequivocal, calling Buddhism one of "the highlights of Indian philosophical thought". Clearly both of these leading scholars thought of 'Buddhism' as encompassing both religion and philosophy, and that it would be absurd to mention one without mentioning the other.

The phrase about 'liberation through insight' still has a place, perhaps as description of "Buddhism as originally conceived". The rest of the wording as it stands is alright, although the use of the word 'spiritual' is still problematic.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 10:03, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

In case some people are reading this discussion without having read our earlier one, I'll just summarize again what I said above. All 3 scholars KV cites saying Buddhism is a philosophy as well as a religion are dead. No evidence has been presented that there's a significant body of scholarly opinion at the present day to that effect. On the contrary, most scholars simply say it's a religion. (I can clutter this column up with more citations if you insist.) Now it may be that there is such a body of opinion, in which case policy would require it to be mentioned. It doesn't follow that it should be in the lead. That could simply mention the mainstream view while making it clear there are others.

Nigel & Ninly say the article should simply assert as fact that it's a religion. This would be in accordance with policy only if there is no significant body of scholarly opinion that actually disagrees with the statement. Is that so? I honestly don't know. Let's have a look at some alternative views:

I don't know of any present-day scholars who say religion is the wrong category to put Buddhism into.
There are certainly scholars who say that the whole category of religion is an artificial one not corresponding to reality (Clarke & Beyer, The World's Religions, Routledge, 2009, pages viii, 136). I don't know whether they're a significant body. I suspect those scholars might well also hold that Buddhism, Christianity &c are also artificial categories.
The latest edition of a standard textbook (cited above) says Buddhism is a family of 3 religions. This is prima facie evidence of a significant body of opinion, though that might perhaps be rebuttable.

Peter jackson (talk) 11:13, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Me neither.
This is true and compelling to me, but I think this is not the place to seek consensus about the definition or propriety of the term religion itself. The religion article seems (and I haven't investigated this in depth) to have struck a fair balance between mainstream views and acknowledgment of significant dissent. I may look into this further.
Not sure what happened, but I guess I wasn't too active on here when it was taken down. This article did once say "family of religions" in the lead, and (after a period of skepticism) I was pretty comfortable with that. /ninly (talk) 14:43, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Among the main things I have disliked about defining Buddhism as philosophy in the lead is the way(s) it has been worded, which struck me as unencyclopedic. Assuming we keep it, I've taken a stab at rewording it; please comment or contribute. In particular I thought the conjunction, "~ is a religion or spiritual philosophy ..." was awkward and ambiguous. /ninly (talk) 06:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Beliefs

People who follow Buddhism believe in many things. They believe in reincarnation, karma, dharma, and ahimsa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rockon9057 (talk • contribs) 23:20, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Belief is not necessary; In the end, your beliefs can hold you back. What is necessary is pure experience, unfettered by the blinders of belief. The Buddha allegedly said: "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." Viriditas (talk) 09:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know who's alleging that. The scriptural passage it resembles doesn't say "believe". It says "don't go by &c. When you know for yourselves that something is good/bad, act accordingly." This of course sidesteps the question they'd actually asked: "Different teachers say different things. How do we tell who's right?" When you know for yourself is all very well, but until then? They end up taking refuge: having faith? Peter jackson (talk) 11:18, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

For one example, see Prayudh Payutto's Buddhadhamma, translated by Grant A. Olson.[5][6]. I don't think it sidesteps the question at all, but leaves the answer up to them, which is where it always resides. Viriditas (talk) 12:51, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what this discussion is about, as there hasn't been any coherent suggestion or comment about the content of the article, but the concept of faith (Sk: sraddha) is a significant part of the Buddhist tradition. It is, of course, conceived quite differently than in the Abrahamic religions. As I understand it, the basic idea is that faith is important, if not indispensable, in a person's taking refuge and diligent practice. That is, why should someone practice a technique if he or she does not believe it's worth their time? /ninly (talk) 15:06, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there's much difference between different religions' ideas of faith, but I agree that this section is not as it stands particularly relevant to improving the article. Peter jackson (talk) 18:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, and find it very relevant to improving and expanding this article. See this, Peter, and tell me what you think. Viriditas (talk) 10:46, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Read what I said: "as it stands". That is, what had appeared so far in the section was merely WP editors' personal opinions (including mine), which aren't relevant to improving the article. The source you cite is the opinion of a particular Buddhist teacher, perhaps sufficiently prominent for his views to be mentioned in any discussion of the topic in the article, but not a reliable source for the views of Buddhists generally. Peter jackson (talk) 10:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, I suggest it is the very heart and essence of Buddhism itself: "It is always a question of knowing and seeing, and not that of believing. The teaching of the Buddha is qualified as ehi-passika, inviting you to 'come and see', but not to come and believe."[7] (10) Stephen Ruppenthal explains: "A person who understands the reason behind a law is more likely to obey it intelligently than someone who is simply ordered to obey. Similarly, the person who sees life interdependently linked in dharma's cosmic web will know exactly why controlling selfish urges is essential in conduct; there will be no need to take someone else's word for it. It is through direct, intimate, personal knowledge of dharma, rather than a high moral code or social pressure, that selfless, righteous actions arise."[8] Peter, I'm curious where you are coming from. Viriditas (talk) 11:04, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You can suggest what you like.

Where I'm coming from is the Wikipedia policy of relying mainly on scholarly sources. Buddhist writings are reliable sources only for the views of their authors, not other Buddhists. Buddhism is extremely varied over history & geography, but this variety is not reflected in those Buddhist writers popular among Westerners & Westernized orientals, who are much more uniform. Peter jackson (talk) 11:19, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

"Buddhism is a religion of ehi passika, come and see, come and experiment for yourself."[9] Peter, please provide a source that disputes this view. Otherwise, accept that it is the mainstream perspective on Buddhism. William M. Johnston in the Encyclopedia of Monasticism writes:

Despite the belief of Buddhists that Buddha's comprehension of dhamma (doctrinal truth) is perfect, they do not rely on him in the way that Christians often rely on their religious leaders. There is a rejection of anything except the authority of experience and experimentalism (not to be confused with empiricism). Buddha urged his disciples to come and see (ehi passika) for themselves in a way that makes personal realization (not to be confused with empirical verification) paramount. Rather than accepting doctrine on blind faith in the way Buddhists saw the Hindi brahmins doing, everyone is to be a lamp or island (Pali dipa can mean either one) for oneself. The Buddha encourages rational faith (akaravati saddha), not the baseless faith (amulika saddha) of the brahmins, like blind men touching various parts of an elephant and taking reality to be limited to partial perception."[10] (188)

Peter, is this source acceptable to you? Viriditas (talk) 11:42, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

It no doubt counts as a reliable source, but a rather non-specialist one. Specialist ones are preferred. I think the more general point is that, if you're going to have section on this topic, it's supposed to give a balanced coverage of it. So presumably it should cover things like the following too.

"... traditional Buddhism, where faith is preliminary to practice." (Mitchell, Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 2002, page 259)
"Most traditions of Buddhism consider saddhā, 'trustful confidence' or faith, as a quality which must be balanced by wisdom, and as a preparation for, or accompaniment of, meditation." (Harvey, Introduction to Buddhism, Cambridge University Press, 1990, page 170)
"The Pure Land school of Mahayana is the most widely practised today." (Clarke & Beyer, The World's Religions, Routledge, 2009, page 86)
"What proved to be the most popular form of Buddhism in East Asia, Pure-Land ..." (Shaw, Introduction to Buddhist Meditation, Routledge, 2009, page 208)
"Pure Land Buddhism stresses faith in this power of Amitābha to save humankind from rebirth into the realms of ignorance and suffering by bringing those who call on him to his Pure Land." (Mitchell, Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 2002, page 206)

Peter jackson (talk) 16:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

PJ, whom you regard as being 'specialist' is unfortunately frequently dubious and often reflects only your pov . I seem to remember you calling Ninian Smart a 'non specialist' when discussing Buddhism as religion/philosophy, when he was considered the worlds leading expert on comparative religon and philosophy and probably best placed of any scholar to make such an assessment.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 21:54, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Peter, you still have not addressed my question about faith in Buddhism. Faith in Buddhism is different than other religions, and is not blind. You are essentially arguing that a 12th-century interpretation of Buddhism by Shinran is more important than those of the Buddha himself, which is a strange thing to say. Does a practice become more "true" depending on how many adhere to it? Why are you thinking only in terms of Pure Land Buddhism? Do you think this article should be focused on the 12th century interpretation of Pure Land, simply because it is popular with some people in some countries? Perhaps you should read the Basic Points Unifying the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna (1967): "We admit that in different countries there are differences regarding Buddhist beliefs and practices. These external forms and expressions should not be confused with the essential teachings of the Buddha."(1967) And the more recent formulation: "We admit that in different countries there are differences with regard to the ways of life of Buddhist monks, popular Buddhist beliefs and practices, rites and rituals, ceremonies, customs and habits. These external forms and expressions should not be confused with the essential teachings of the Buddha." (1981) Your references are also problematic, Peter. You use Clarke & Beyer (2009) to claim that "Pure Land is the most widely practiced" but this is a distortion, as it ignores that as a whole, 59% of temples and 62% of adherents in East Asia are not Pure Land.[11] Clarke & Beyer's work has also been criticized by Christopher McConnell for the American Library Association as being less of a reference work, and more of a collection of essays, criticized for its "unevenness". So, Peter, instead of playing games with numbers and percentages, please address the essential teachings of the Buddha, not specific differences in external forms unique to certain regions and cultures. And tell me Peter, how is faith addressed in these essential teachings, and what role does ehi-passika play? Viriditas (talk) 02:07, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

While my choice of words earlier (conceived rather differently) was perhaps poor -- "presented differently" might have been more accurate -- upon reflection, I agree with Peter that the idea of faith in various religions is less different than you're arguing. Particularly your contention that faith in other religions is blind betrays a biased perspective and perhaps misunderstanding of faith in non-Buddhist religions.

On the other hand, I do agree that the global prominence of Pure Land believers should not be allowed overly to color the presentation of Buddhist cosmology and tradition as a whole. While it is a significant part of Buddhism, that doesn't mean it is Buddhism. /ninly (talk) 00:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

As William M. Johnston[12] writes above, "Rather than accepting doctrine on blind faith in the way Buddhists saw the Hindi brahmins doing, everyone is to be a lamp or island (Pali dipa can mean either one) for oneself. The Buddha encourages rational faith (akaravati saddha), not the baseless faith (amulika saddha) of the brahmins..." What part of this do you disagree with here? Viriditas (talk) 05:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

"Blind faith" is anti-Christian propaganda. Do you want me to cite Thomas Aquinas as saying that faith is based, not only on the evidence of miracles, but also on "the inward instinct of the divine invitation": you hear the call & respond?

The link you gave doesn't give any information about anything; it's just a book list.

On the "Basic Points" text. The organization that produced this isn't mentioned in

Macmillan Encyclopedia of Buddhism
Routledge Encyclopedia of Buddhism
Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism
Journal of Global Buddhism

as far as I can tell. It's obviously a small & unimportant organization. (How many dictionaries & encyclopaedias of Christianity fail to mention the World Council of Churches? Yet that's only a minority of Christianity.) All one can tell from its website is that it includes

the Dalai Lama
some Theravadins
some members of at least one East Asian school

essential teachings of the Buddha: according to whom? The whole point is that both Buddhists & historians disagree on what these are. Peter jackson (talk) 11:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

It might be worth while at this point having a quick look at the logistics of the subject:

"The dramatic growth in scholarship on Buddhism over the past half century, both in the quantity and the quality of that scholarship, has made it virtually impossible for a single scholar to claim knowledge of the entire tradition across its vast geographical and chronological sweep." (Lopez, (Story of) Buddhism, Harper/Penguin, 2001, page ix)

That means that statements about Buddhism as a whole are tertiary sources. According to the policy, Wikipedia is supposed to be based mainly on secondary sources. According to the guideline, this should apply to each individual article. If this article is to comply with the guideline, it will have to be totally rewritten so that most of it is about particular branches of the tradition, not Buddhism in general. Whether or not this is done, tertiary sources should be treated with caution, & common sense suggests they should be checked against secondary (& maybe primary?) ones where possible. Peter jackson (talk) 12:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Now here's some material from a field anthropologist who studied Chinese Buddhism 1st hand:

"Some readers ... may have heard that ... Ch'an ... died out long ago in China, choked by superstition and decay. After an inspection tour of Chinese Buddhism in 1934, Dr. Suzuki wrote: "Japanese Zen travellers ... [ellipsis in Welch] deplore the fact that there is no more Zen in China." [source cited] The facts are otherwise. At a small number of monasteries right up to the year 1949, hundreds of monks continued the strict practice of collective meditation under common masters. Ch'an Buddhism in China was destroyed, while still alive, by the land reforms of 1950. Meditation takes time, and time takes unearned income." (Holmes Welch, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism 1900-1950, Harvard University Press, 1967, page 47)

"Since we are living in the age of the decay of the dharma, it is difficult ... to reach nirvana here through our own efforts. Therefore most Buddhists in China prefer to get the help of Amitābha by reciting his name ..." (Welch, 1967, pages 89f)

"... as time passed, all schools came to be regarded as mutually complementary. ... in the past century the attitude of the sangha has been that the doctrines of every school are equally valid." (Welch, 1967, page 395)

"Because a monk could have several different kinds of masters, he could belong in different ways to different sects. Usually when he entered the sangha, the master who shaved his head was of the Lin-chi lineage, since it was by far the most common. ... The disciple may not have known who Lin-chi was, much less what he taught, but if someone asked him what sect he belonged to, he would reply "Lin-chi." Or if, for example, some years after his head was shaved, he had received the dharma from a mater of the Ts'ao-tung lineage, then he might alternatively say that his sect was Ts'ao-tung ... if someone asked [a monk] "in respect to religious practice, what sect are you?"—the chances are that he would answer "Pure Land" or perhaps "Pure Land and Ch'an combined."" (Welch, 1967, page 396)

"Before 1949 the goals of most Chinese Buddhists could only be called otherworldly. A few sought release from this world through nirvana, but the great majority, since nirvana was too difficult to achieve in our degenerate age, sought it through devotion to the Buddha Amitābha. That is, they hoped that after death they would not have to be reborn in this world of suffering but would be accepted into the Pure Land ..." (Welch, Buddhism under Mao, Harvard, 1972, page 288)

This backs up the 2 tertiary sources saying PL is the most popular, bearing in mind that most estimates of the numbers of Chinese Buddhists are around 100,000,000, i.e. near 1/3 of the world Buddhist population. I can also cite sources for plenty in Vietnam & Japan.

There's a phenomenon I call the afterthought mentality. You get it in a lot of books on Christianity in English. They say things along the lines of "Christians believe ... Oh but actually Catholics believe ..." Catholics are treated as an afterthought, even though they're the majority on most estimates. How far can you take this? "Buddhists believe in following the path of the bodhisattva. Oh but actually Theravadins don't." I think most people would say that's biased. Yet Theravadins number around 1/3 of world Buddhist population, similar to Pure Land. So it would also be biased to treat PL as an afterthought. Going further, though, it seems reasonable to say most Budddhists are led by monks, with Japan the only major exception. Peter jackson (talk) 12:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

"Does a practice become more "true" depending on how many adhere to it?" WP isn't about truth. This article is supposed to be about "Buddhism", i.e. a major religion followed by 350,000,000 people. In other words, what large numbers of people believe & practise is precisely what it is supposed to be about.

Ninly, "On the other hand, I do agree that the global prominence of Pure Land believers should not be allowed overly to color the presentation of Buddhist cosmology and tradition as a whole. While it is a significant part of Buddhism, that doesn't mean it is Buddhism."

If you look back, you'l see that what I was talking about was balance. Peter jackson (talk) 12:26, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

PJ, before we go any further let us clarify something. You say "Wikipedia isn't about truth". Yes it is. Knowing the truth in all forms is the purpose of what we are doing. Whether it is the truth of what a teaching is, the truth of what people practice as tradition, the truth of scholarly opinion, it always about finding truth and separating it from misconception, in one form or another.

If anything, the arguments about Pureland support the view that as a Japanese tradition it is really something quite different from 'Buddhism' as presented in Theravada, practicing Mahayana or Vajrayana. Within Mahayana, it was really only a part of the wider teachings. And this is one of the problems about trying to divide up 'religion', 'philosophy' and 'psychology', categorizations that are interlinked in Indian tradition. This is even mor problematic when trying to not only categorize, but group such a disparate collection of traditions under the heading 'Buddhism'. Hence the inevitable result is you will always get yourself into a tangled mess that you have found yourself in, trying to cite various contrasting opinion which frequently encounters the same problem. Clearly trying to generalize however by giving greater prominance to the Pure Land tradition is not balanced. I see no evidence that chanting to Amitabh was the main practice of Chinese Mahayanists.

So if we look at the teachings of core Buddhism, whether Theravada or Mahayana, as well as the core teachings of Christianity, we can see evidence that 'faith' or confidence indeed has a different meaning. Within the the core teachings that comprise Christinity, blind faith is actively encouraged. There is numerous evidence for this, not just from modern Christianity but from within the biblical teachings.

John 20:29: Jesus says: "Because you have seen, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." Clearly it would be hard to find a more direct and stark instruction on having blind faith.

Similarly the Old Testament is full (I have no intention of digging out all the numerous quotes) where blind faith in 'God' is advocated.

So your statement that "Blind faith" is anti-Christian propaganda". Is clearly contradicted by the fact of the original and widely known primary sources themselves. You also cite Thomas Aquinas saying that faith is based on the 'evidence' of miracles, as well as "the inward instinct of the divine invitation". Again, you seem to veer between presenting skewed scholarly view when it suits you, to suddenly sounding more like like a devout Christian true believer at other times.

What exactly does "the inward instinct of the divine invitation" mean? This kind of wordplay nonsense is not any way to detemine whether someone holds to 'faith' or not. So someone says they 'feel' a call to faith. I wonder what psychologists and anthropologists have said about this topic. Similarly, the 'evidence' of miracles. Most of the worlds 1.5 billion or so Christians have faith in the supposed miracles of Jesus, this is not evidence.

In contrast with core Buddhist teachings in all the main traditions of Theravada and Mahayana, confidence in the teachings is advocated by examination of them. "There is birth, ageing, sickness and death" says the Buddha to begin with in the first discourse, as well as throughout Mahayana and Theravada doctinal sources. "Ageing is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering". This is an entirely different way to build 'confidence' or 'faith'. Which is what we would expect, since one (Christianity) is at core a religion based on blind faith, whereas the other (Buddhism) is a philosophy/religion/psychology coming at these issues from an entirely different perpective. Again, there is nor real argument against this, other than citing a few more quotes from Welch about Pure Lan, which as we have already mentioned, cannot be taken as representative of anything other than the specific Pure Land tradition itself.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 13:33, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

"Wikipedia isn't about truth" was a bit of a throwaway line. The policy does say that the criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth, but that isn't actually what we're disussing here. The point is that this article is supposed to be about what Buddhists actually believe & practise, not what a few Western or Westernized editors of Wikipedia think they ought to believe & practise.

"If anything, the arguments about Pureland support the view that as a Japanese tradition it is really something quite different from 'Buddhism' as presented in Theravada, practicing Mahayana or Vajrayana." Well, for a start, Pure Land isn't Japanese. If you'd read the citations above you'd know that. It's based on 3 scriptures, 2 of which survive in Sanskrit & were presumably written in India. I think both of these, certainly 1 of them, are found in the Tibetan Kanjur (as recognized scriptures). The 3rd survives only in Chinese & may well have originated in that country. All 3 are included in all standard collected editions of scriptures from China, Korea & Japan (& Vietnam if there is such an edition). There doesn't seem to have been a significant PL movement in India, but it really took off in Central Asia. It tends to be counted as a recognized "school" in China from about 400 AD, with teachers like Tanluan, Shandao &c. Their writings likewise are included in the standard collected editions. This isn't some sort of aberration. It's part of mainstream East Asian Buddhism.

"I see no evidence that chanting to Amitabh was the main practice of Chinese Mahayanists." Again, you don't seem to have read the above citations. A field anthropologist who observed Chinese Buddhism 1st hand says just that. Note by the way that this is the culmination of centuries of history. At one time most Chinese monks practised Chan, leaving PL to the laity, but Chan declined over the centuries, & gradually combined with PL where it survived, leading to the modern position Welch describes.

"This is even mor problematic when trying to not only categorize, but group such a disparate collection of traditions under the heading 'Buddhism'." Exactly. But it's people like you & Viriditas who're trying to generalize. I'm the one who's pointing out the imbalance in such generalizations.

"core Buddhism": & what might that be? It's no good simply endlessly asserting your own beliefs about what it is. Wikipedia is supposed to be based on "reliable sources", & I probably have to repeat yet again that Buddhist sources are relaible only for the beliefs of their authors. If the authors are prominent Buddhists, it seems reasonable to assume that they represent a significant body of opinion within Buddhism, but that's all. It's totally fallacious to assume they represent Buddhism as a whole. You wouldn't trust the Pope or Billy Graham for an unbiased account of Christianity. And the writers popular among Westerners & Westernized orientals represent Buddhist modernism, not Buddhism as a whole.

So what do scholars say about "core Buddhism"? Well, the curious thing is that the answer is, usually, nothing. Most of them simply ignore the question. They simply embark on a survey of the main forms of Buddhism, most often historically. A few try to give an answer, but I find them mostly unintelligible. And some simply reject the idea of a common core. (Citations at User:Peter jackson#Common core.) So no assertions can be made in the article about such a core backed by citations from RSs.

If you want to discuss Christian concepts of faith further, I suggest you visit some appropriate articles. Peter jackson (talk) 15:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Now, let me start again from a different perspective. The most reliable source on Buddhism is the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Buddhism (2004; printed & ebook editions). The reason is very simple: it has over 200 contributors. That makes it closer to specialist knowledge than textbooks (1-3 authors) or even the Routledge Encyclopedia of Buddhism (23 contributors). It's not infallible; in fact different articles sometimes contradict each other. But it's a very good place to start to find out mainstream scholarly views. The article on Faith (pages 277-9, in Volume One) is by Luis O. Gómez of Michigan University. Here's the introductory section complete.

"Few notions elicit more debate and vague associations than the family of concepts associated with the word faith and its various approximate synonyms (e.g., belief). Needless to say the English faith has no exact equivalent in the languages of Asia. The word means many things in English and in other Western languages as well, and the proximate Asian equivalents also have many meanings in their Asian contexts. This is not to say that faith cannot be used as a descriptive or analytical tool to understand Buddhist ideas and practices yet one must be aware of the cultural and polemic environments that shaped Buddhist notions of faith."

Peter jackson (talk) 16:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

At the end comes a section headed Summary Interpretation, which I again give in full:

"Ideals of nondiscursive apprehension straddle the dividing line between faith and knowledge, humble surrender and recognition of a state of liberation that cannot be acquired by the individual's will. In some ways the tradition seems to assume that one has faith in that which one respects and trusts, but also in that which one wishes to attain, and that which one imagines oneself to be or able to become."

I can post more later if it helps. Peter jackson (talk) 16:11, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I've had another look at the link given by Viriditas, & it appears to be mainly about a book by Paul Williams that I haven't come across. We don't seem to have it here, so I can't check what it says (yet), but here are a few comments.

The book title talks about "China, East Asia and Japan", which suggests "East Asia" might mean Vietnam & Korea.
From all I've read previously by & about him, he specializes in the Indo-Tibetan tradition. I've come across no indication that he knows Chinese or Japanese.
Let's suppose he's right that only 38% of East Asian Buddhists are PL. Since East Asian Buddhism, on most estimates, is more than 1/2 the world total, that still gives 1/5, or 1/4, PL. Still a major slice, not a minor fringe group.

"You are essentially arguing that a 12th-century interpretation of Buddhism by Shinran is more important than those of the Buddha himself, which is a strange thing to say." What an absurd thing to say. It's completely wrong in several ways:

I never mentioned Shinran. His is simply the most radical version of Pure Land. Its own peculiarities (salvation by pure faith, granted by grace) are followed by enough people to be mentioned, but not given great prominence. But the Pure Land movement is far larger.
It's unimportant to this article what the Buddha himself actually said. It seems reasonable to mention that most, but not all, scholars think he taught something like Theravada. But this article is supposed to be about what Buddhists think he taught, not what historians, or Wikipedia editors, or just Western(ized) Buddhists & their teachers, think he taught.
I clearly stated I was talking about balance. That's not a matter of treating one thing as more important than another, as such.

Peter jackson (talk) 16:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

To Peter Jackson and Knowledge and Vision: Thank you for your thoughtful contributions to this discussion page. It is wonderful to have you both here. However, per WP:TALK, "If your post is longer than 100 words, consider shortening it. Long, rambling messages are difficult to understand, and are frequently either ignored or misunderstood." Thank you very much for you attention in this matter. Let's work to keep the talk page open to everybody. Viriditas (talk) 22:39, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I've just had a look at the 3 current discussions to see who 1st went over 100 words:

#Path of salvation: Nigel
#Practical philosophy: Ninly
this section: you

My general policy is to start with brief statements. If people then start arguing or asking for details I then often have to get longer. If someone posts a long screed some people just ignore it or hurl abuse at the poster. I try to respond to it properly, which usually involves going on at length myself. Have you any alternative suggestions as to procedure? Should I do what you seem to be implicitly doing here, ask them to abridge what they've said? The fact is, some things really are complicated.

Some more thoughts on your Williams citation (which you still haven't supplied properly):

4. 38% PL is not inconsistent with its being the most popular. Does the source give figures for other schools?
5. You cited it as talking about adherents. Is that the word it used? It tends to be used to refer to nominal adherents. Note that the citation from Clarke & Beyer says most widely practised. Note also that the Welch material cited above makes clear that Chinese Buddhism is mostly Zen nominally but PL in practice. (Lin-chi, or Linji in the new spelling, is better known by the Japanese name Rinzai, the smaller of the 2 main branches of Japanese Zen.)

Peter jackson (talk) 11:37, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:TALK, like almost all WP policy, is a set of guidelines to be considered rather than rules to observe. Concision is obviously preferable when possible, but we deal often with complex and difficult ideas in this article, a great deal of disparate material, and sometimes convoluted discussion. This isn't always conducive to short responses. As always, however, I'll review my writing before posting. /ninly (talk) 22:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

That's fine, but Peter has a bad habit of posting long screeds in response to direct questions, and never answers the question. Furthermore, he makes claims that are either false, somewhat false, or can be misconstrued as true. I don't know if he is doing this on purpose or by accident, but its gotten to the point where something needs to be done. As only one of many examples, for several years now, Peter has been making this claim about the failure to find a "common core" of Buddhism. Nevermind the fact that the claim is, in of itself inappropriate in the creation of a broad encyclopedia article, but consider that in a brief response to Peter, I mentioned that Basic Points Unifying the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna published by the First Congress of the World Buddhist Sangha Council (WBSC) said that they admit that there are differences in Buddhist beliefs and practices in different countries, but "these external forms and expressions should not be confused with the essential teachings of the Buddha." In response to this, Peter writes above, "The organization that produced this isn't mentioned in (four examples of encyclopedias) as far as I can tell. It's obviously a small & unimportant organization." What is so interesting about Peter's response is what he omits from his list of encyclopedias. The organization is in fact, mentioned in the entry for Buddhism in the Encyclopædia Britannica online, which writes, "A number of societies have been established to promote cooperation between Buddhists from all countries and denominations, including the Maha Bodhi Society (established in 1891 in order to win back Buddhist control of the pilgrimage site associated with the enlightenment of the Buddha), the World Fellowship of Buddhists (founded in 1950), and the World Buddhist Sangha Council (1966)." So Peter makes a list of the encyclopedias where it isn't mentioned, but fails to list the most important one where it is. This is the kind of research I have come to expect from Peter. Further, here are some very limited examples from the Encyclopædia Britannica: "As Buddhism spread, it encountered new currents of thought and religion...Despite these vicissitudes, Buddhism did not abandon its basic principles. Instead, they were reinterpreted, rethought, and reformulated in a process that led to the creation of a great body of literature... Consequently, from the first sermon of the Buddha at Sarnath to the most recent derivations, there is an indisputable continuity—a development or metamorphosis around a central nucleus—by virtue of which Buddhism is differentiated from other religions...Like other great religions, Buddhism has generated a wide range of popular practices. Among these, two simple practices are deeply rooted in the experience of the earliest Buddhist community and have remained basic to all Buddhist traditions...The first is the veneration of the Buddha or other buddhas, bodhisattvas, or saints, which involves showing respect, meditating on the qualities of the Buddha, or giving gifts....The second basic practice is the exchange that takes place between monks and laypersons...Although the exchange is structured differently in each Buddhist tradition, it has remained until recently a component in virtually all forms of Buddhist community life...The Buddha, according to the early texts, also discovered the law of dependent origination (paticca-samuppada)... Despite a diversity of interpretations, the law of dependent origination of the various aspects of becoming remains fundamentally the same in all schools of Buddhism." Now, note the role given to Pure Land in the context of Mahayana: "The Mahayana tradition encompasses a great many different schools, including the Madhyamika; the Yogacara or Vijnanavada (Vijnaptamatrata); the Avatamsaka school, which recognized the special importance of the Avatamsaka Sutra; a number of different schools that recognized the special authority of the Saddharmapundarika (Lotus Sutra); various Pure Land devotional schools; and several Dhyana (“Meditation”) schools." Viriditas (talk) 09:03, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Copy of discussion elsewhere, & general continuation

Before I go into that, let me copy here the continuation of the above discussion on my talk page, which has now got to the point where I think it needs to come back here for fresh eyes.

Hi, Peter. While I was archiving the Buddhism talk page, I took a minute to look at your contributions. You've made somewhere around ~4,724 edits, 39% of which have been made to the talk page. From 2006-2009, you've focused mostly on Buddhist topics, however I do not see any GA or FA work. Keep in mind, the talk page is used to improve articles, not to debate the merits of Buddhism or scholarship on the issue. I don't know if you remember Skipsievert (talk · contribs) or not, but he held up the improvement of Sustainability and related topics for years. What is interesting, is the pattern of his contributions, which look very much like your own. Now, I have been reading your discussions in the archives, and there does appear to be a pattern of presenting a revisionist view of Buddhism that is not reflected by most sources on the topic. Most disturbingly, is your repeated claim throughout the archives that it is "not possible to define what, if anything, Buddhists as a whole believe in, as that too is a matter of dispute." Either you keep saying this to prevent people from working on and improving the article, or you have a misunderstanding about Buddhism and how Wikipedia works. It is most certainly possible to define what Buddhists believe in, using the essential teachings of the Buddha, which all sects have in common. This is not in dispute, and Buddhist organizations agree on this one fact. You could go a long way to alleviating my concern by choosing one single Buddhist topic and bringing it to GA or FA class. This would show that you are really here to improve articles, and not to hold up or prevent their improvement. What do you think? Viriditas (talk) 00:04, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Once again you're making totally unsupported assertions. "It is most certainly possible to define what Buddhists believe in, using the essential teachings of the Buddha, which all sects have in common. This is not in dispute, and Buddhist organizations agree on this one fact." You cite no evidence in support of this statement, while I've cited quite a few sources against it, both on the talk page & on my own user page.

"a revisionist view of Buddhism that is not reflected by most sources on the topic". There's a difference between quality & quantity. Yes, what I say differs from what most English-language sources say, because most of those sources are written either by non-specialists or by propagandists for particular forms of Buddhism. What I say is based on specialist scholarship, scholars who've actually studied a much wider range of Buddhist literature and/or observed real-life Buddhism at 1st hand. What they say is simply that Buddhism is much more varied than those sources would indicate, & that those sources represent a particular variety of Buddhism they most commonly call Buddhist modernism, though different scholars use different names. Peter jackson (talk) 11:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

You know perfectly well that I have cited the evidence for my statement on the article talk page, as you have previously discussed it, so your feigned ignorance here is beneath you. Peter, your position on this matter is at odds with not only all of the Buddhists you have discussed it with in the archives, but with most of the authors on this topic. If you aren't here to help improve the articles, then what are you here for? To push your POV about how modern Buddhism is influenced by Protestant values? Peter, you recently said that the concept of "blind faith" is anti-Christian propaganda, but how can that be when it was used to describe the blind faith of the Hindi brahmins, many centuries before Christ? And how can it be "anti-Christian" to observe, as William M. Johnston does, that Buddhists "do not rely on him in the way that Christians often rely on their religious leaders." Are you claiming that the following is not true?

Buddha urged his disciples to come and see (ehi passika) for themselves in a way that makes personal realization (not to be confused with empirical verification) paramount. Rather than accepting doctrine on blind faith in the way Buddhists saw the Hindi brahmins doing, everyone is to be a lamp or island (Pali dipa can mean either one) for oneself. The Buddha encourages rational faith (akaravati saddha), not the baseless faith (amulika saddha) of the brahmins, like blind men touching various parts of an elephant and taking reality to be limited to partial perception.[13]

If you are disputing these facts, Peter, then you will need to provide a source that directly addresses these concepts, based on the essential teachings of the Buddha, not your usual selection of out of context quotes that you cobble together to prove your point. In other words, provide sources that directly address and discuss ehi passika, and the concept of rational faith in Buddhism. Otherwise, you cannot continue to dispute this. Viriditas (talk) 11:52, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Point me to anything I've missed, but as far as I can see the only source you've given for that statement is a document issued by an organization so unimportant it doesn't seem to be mentioned in major dictionaries & encyclopaedias or a major periodical in the field. Can you cite a reliable source saying all major Buddhist denominations are affiliated to this organization?

When I talked about anti-Christian propaganda, I meant this is what it is when said by Westerners. No doubt Hindus would also claim their faith is not blind. Such mutual polemics between religions aren't very helpful, & have only a minor place in Wikipedia, mainly in articles about themselves.

As you're returning to the point at issue specifically, let me just say yet again that I'm talking about balance. You really should be aware by now that it's perfectly possible for every word of a biased article to be true. Peter jackson (talk) 12:05, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok. As a Christian, it offends you that Johnston calls your faith "blind", correct? I have asked you several times to address this by discussing ehi passika and akaravati saddha. Buddha criticizes the blind faith of the Brahmins in the Canki Sutta: "O Vasettha, those priests who know the scriptures are just like a line of blind men tied together where the first sees nothing, the middle man nothing, and the last sees nothing...It is not proper for a wise man who maintains truth to come to the conclusion: This alone is Truth, and everything else is false...To be attached to one thing (to a certain view) and to look down upon other things (views) as inferior - this the wise men call a fetter." What does this mean to you, Peter? Viriditas (talk) 12:16, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a Christian, except by background. In so far as I'm anything, I'm a Buddhist. But first and foremost I'm a scholar. I believe in truth, fairness and such things that often seem to be in short supply in Wikipedia.

Now I tell you for the fourth time that I'm talking about balance. Is that so hard to understand? Go back & read what I said. Peter jackson (talk) 10:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Additional comment. The passage you quote above is talking about the original teaching of the Buddha, not about Buddhism, i.e. what 350,000,000 Buddhists today believe & practise. They're different concepts, just as Christianity is a different concept from the original teaching of Jesus. It's not Wikipedia's job to have opinions about whether they're the same or not. The Buddhism article is supposed to be about what Buddhists today believe & do, as related mainly by scholars who've studied them (though writings of prominent Buddhists can be used to show that some Buddhists believe something not found in scholars so far cited). Historians' views of the original teachings have only a minor place in that article. The obvious place for them is in the article on the Buddha, or a separate article. Peter jackson (talk) 11:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

They aren't different, Peter. When Buddhists take refuge in the Three Jewels, they are taking refuge in the dharma, the teachings of the Buddha. And as I have repeatedly informed you, regardless of the sect, all Buddhists have this in common. Now, for someone who calls themselves a Buddhist and a scholar of Buddhism, you would be expected to know this. But why would a Buddhist and a scholar of Buddhism use the World Christian Database to make claims about Buddhism? And btw, you can be a Christian and a Buddhist at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive, and a scholar would know this. And let's face it, Peter, you've been at odds with every Buddhist in the archives of the talk pages. So, either what you are saying is not true, or you are practicing and studying a form of Buddhism that has a total number of adherents approaching the number 1. Viriditas (talk) 10:51, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I now tell you for the fifth time (assuming you've read everything in the discussions you contributed to) that what you (and most editors on the Buddhism page) regard as Buddhism is just one variety of Buddhism. In support of this statement I've collected numerous citations from scholarly sources on my user page. All you seem to be able to cite is propagandists for that particular form of Buddhism claiming that it is Buddhism. Peter jackson (talk) 11:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

External varieties of Buddhism are necessary cultural and regional adaptations of the same, shared beliefs. That you continue to dispute this overwhelming fact is the problem. You repeatedly make claims in this regard, such that "Buddhism cannot be defined" (my paraphrase of your position) or that "faith in Buddhism is similar to other religions", when the sources say differently. When this is explained, you then claim by inference that Western Buddhism is influenced by Protestantism, and that this kind of Buddhist faith is really Christian in character. From what I can tell, you are trying to confuse people, as the articles never seem to get improved, and all we have to show for this effort is lengthy discussions that are never resolved. You know my concerns. I hope that you will take the next step, and break out of this cycle and show some effort in improving Buddhist-related articles on Wikipedia by either bringing them to GA or FA class or working closely with the Buddhist WikiProject to collaborate with others to do it. Otherwise, I will be forced to conclude that you are, in fact, engaging in a very subtle form of civil POV pushing, and I will have to take this to the next level. Viriditas (talk) 11:26, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

"External varieties of Buddhism are necessary cultural and regional adaptations of the same, shared beliefs. That you continue to dispute this overwhelming fact is the problem." Once again you keep making the same assertions without citing any reliable sources to back them up, while I've cited, on my user page, numerous reliable sources supporting my position, as I just told you. Please take the time to read through them.

I don't know what you mean by the next level. As I've said before (to you?), WP has no effective procedure to enforce its neutrality policy. There's actually nothing to stop you & KV imposing your own POV on the article, if you have the numbers to back you. This is what's fundamentally wrong with WP. Peter jackson (talk) 11:36, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Peter, I have no intention of imposing my POV on any article, and if I have, it was out of ignorance. But, enlighten me, Peter. Exactly what POV is it that you see me and KV attempting to impose? I will admit that I am not fully familiar with all of KV's comments, so you'll have to be very specific in your reply. Perhaps your critical feedback on this matter will lead us to see eye to eye for once. So explain to me, what you see as my POV, here. Viriditas (talk) 11:42, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Did I say you were attempting to impose it? I know WP's rules about NPA, AGF &c.

Perhaps I could go on at great length, but let's just keep the discussion to the point we've just been talking about for now. You keep endlessly asserting that there's a common core to the different forms of Buddhism (not your words, but tell me if you think they misrepresent you). Now in User:Peter jackson#Common core you'll find citations from 4 different scholarly sources to show that some scholars reject such an idea. There are probably others who disagree, though I haven't been able to find any who give a clear & coherent account of what such a core might be. Maybe you can find some. Most seem to pass over the question in silence. That is, textbooks &c make no attempt to say what Buddhism "is". Don't you think that's strange, if there is one? Possible explanations:

they don't think there is one
they don't know whether there is one
they think there is one, but don't know what it is
they think it's beyond words (but I haven't found any scholar who clearly says even this)
they think they know the answer, but consider it their job as writers of textbooks &c to report general scholarly opinion or lack of same

It seems clear to me that there cannot possibly, in the light of all this evidence, be a scholarly consensus on some common core. Therefore it would violate NPOV for the article to treat some such theory as fact. Peter jackson (talk) 11:59, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Peter, please define what you mean by a "common core" and give examples of such using other religions, such as Christianity. Viriditas (talk) 12:09, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I looked it up. You are referring to William James primarily, and later philosophers like Walter Terence Stace. I read The Varieties of Religious Experience a long time ago. I'm not sure your approach is very helpful for writing a broad encyclopedia article. Granted, a section on philosophy, psychology, and scholarship of Buddhism might mention it, but you are getting hung up on philosophical theories about the teachings rather than focusing on what these essential teachings actually point to. The level of intellectual analysis you are trying to impose on this topic is not only unnecessary, it is distracting us from the goal of writing a good article. I suggest you write abut your common core theories in your user space, and when you are done, you either publish them on Wikipedia as Common core theory of Buddhism or under some other title. Viriditas (talk) 12:56, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

No, I wasn't referring to them. I've heard of William James, but not the other chap. I've no idea what they have to say on this topic. I was simply referring, as I said, to what you keep saying.

"the same, shared beliefs" was your most recent formulation.

"all Buddhists have this in common" was your immediately preceding one (here you actually use the word "common").

"essential teachings of the Buddha, which all sects have in common" was the one before that. Peter jackson (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Peter, please stop playing these tiring games. Your own collection of hand-picked sources with quotes disputing a common core of Buddhism have been on your user page since at least 2008. My recent comments have nothing to do with them. Please note, I have at no time, used the term "common core". Above, you claim not to be referring to the term, but "common core" refers to the "common core theory" used in studies related to the psychology of religion. If you aren't using this term in that way, then you need to define your terms. As I have pointed out to you before, Buddhists around the world do have the same shared beliefs in common, which includes the essential teachings of the Buddha; I doubt you will find Buddhists who don't take refuge in the dharma. The fact is, you aren't going to make your point by selecting sentences from introductions to books. Your argument simply doesn't hold. Articles on Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism all discuss the essential teachings of their religion in detail, and it is appropriate to write an encyclopedia article based on such teachings. You are of course, free to find a tertiary work that reflects your viewpoint, as an example. But your continued efforts at the article on Buddhism are not helping to improve it. From what I can tell, you are engaging in civil POV pushing and it either needs to stop or you need to find a new hobby. Viriditas (talk) 06:55, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

"As I have pointed out to you before, Buddhists around the world do have the same shared beliefs in common, which includes the essential teachings of the Buddha"

You have indeed said this quite a few times (I haven't bothered to keep count). However, the only source you've so far cited is, as I've already told you twice, a small organization with no claim to speak for Buddhists as a whole. I, on the other hand, have just pointed you to 4 scholarly sources that clearly imply that some scholars disagree with any such claim. (In addition, a number of the other sources on my page show that some Buddhists disagree with some of the statements made in that source, & that other parts are misleading.)

"Articles on Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism all discuss the essential teachings of their religion in detail"

You might like to read User:Peter jackson/Encyclopaedias, where I list the tables of contents of Buddhism articles in other encyclopaedias. You might also like to think about textbooks. There the pattern is clearer. Textbooks on Christianity usually do spend most of their space doing just that. Textbooks on Buddhism tend to ignore the question. Interesting, don't you think? (And this too is something I've told you before, twice I think.)

Now, as you seem to be totally incapable of understanding my point, I'm going to copy this entire discussion back to the main talk page. Maybe someone there will be able to explain it to you in a way you can understand. Peter jackson (talk) 11:38, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

What I understand, Peter, is that you seem to be pushing an undue POV that isn't represented by most good sources on the subject. Looking at your user page on the subject, I find the same type of strange claims. For example, you cite a source that claims that "Buddhism is the oldest of the great world religions", which of course, isn't true. You also cite a source that says "there have been about 10,000,000 Buddhist martyrs, and about 1,811,000 Christians have been martyred by (Mahayana) Buddhists." When asked what this means and for details on the subject, you throw your hands up in the air. So there are just two instances of bad sources for disputed statements you've added to your user page. I'm sure I can many, many more. Viriditas (talk) 12:12, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Continuation of main discussion

Now, to respond to what you said above.

"That's fine, but Peter has a bad habit of posting long screeds in response to direct questions, and never answers the question. Furthermore, he makes claims that are either false, somewhat false, or can be misconstrued as true. I don't know if he is doing this on purpose or by accident, but its gotten to the point where something needs to be done. As only one of many examples, for several years now, Peter has been making this claim about the failure to find a "common core" of Buddhism."

In what way is that an example of "posting long screeds in response to direct questions, and never answers the question"?

Common core

The claim I have been making all along is that some scholars reject the idea of a common core of Buddhism. The truth of this claim is easily verified from the citations at User:Peter jackson#Common core. I've never said there are no scholars who say there is a common core. Peter jackson (talk) 11:49, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I've asked you to define what you mean by a common core. You have not been able to do this. I've pointed out that the term, "common core" is used by theorists to discuss the psychology of religion. You say you weren't using it in this way, so how were you using it? If you can't answer a single question about your claims, then we can't use them. I've recently removed the statement, "However, Buddhist schools disagree over the exact nature of the path and on the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures" from the lead section because it did not appear to summarize the topic per WP:LEAD. (it was recently reverted and added back by User:Andi 3ö) Can you show me where it does? Viriditas (talk) 11:56, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Encyclopaedias &c

I'm doing this a bit at a time for convenience.

"In response to this, Peter writes above, "The organization that produced this isn't mentioned in (four examples of encyclopedias) as far as I can tell. It's obviously a small & unimportant organization." What is so interesting about Peter's response is what he omits from his list of encyclopedias. The organization is in fact, mentioned in the entry for Buddhism in the Encyclopædia Britannica online"

I was citing specialist encyclopaedias. If this organization represented all Buddhists, as you seem to imply (I'm not sure you've actually stated it eplicitly), why isn't it mentioned. As I asked before, how many encyclopaedias & dictionaries of Christianity can you find that don't mention the World Council of Churches? Yet that's only a minority of Christians. The idea that the WBSC represents all Buddhists is totally implausible in the face of this argumentum e silentio. You might also look at WP's own article on it, which lists the countries in which it has members. (This used to be on their website too.) No mention of China. (Nor in the list of committee members on the website.) That's 100,000,000 or so Buddhists unrepresented for a start. Peter jackson (talk) 11:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

So now you are reduced to straw man arguments and basically arguing with yourself. This is what I have come to expect from you. I've asked you somewhere on the order of a dozen different questions and you haven't been able to answer one. Instead, you keep going off on a tangent about something or another. Viriditas (talk) 12:00, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you'd care to list your dozen questions & I'll give you the diffs for where I answered them. Peter jackson (talk) 11:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

More on common core

Now you've found a scholar who says there is a common core. Well done. That doesn't mean those who deny it don't exist. And other scholars seem to have different ideas about what it is. For example, see User:Peter jackson/Mitchell, which, though not at all clear, seems to think the common core is some sort of deep experience. And I can find you a few more when you've finished sorting out the archives (which I dare say all this discussion may be distracting you from). In brief: Lopez, with a qualification I find unintelligible, says it's about liberation from rebirth; Cousins says it's nearly always about meditation; Pye seems to imply, but not to say explicitly, that it's something beyond form, so presumably beyond words; & Keown seems to say it's a combination of several things (4 noble truths, ahimsa, meditation &c).

You are using the term "common core" the way it is used by "common core theorists" as I originally suspected. Perhaps you, yourself, aren't familiar with it. As a broad encyclopedia article, we are not concerned with common core theorists, and I've suggested you start a new article called Common core theories in Buddism or merge them into Buddhism and psychology. This article is not at all concerned with that topic. Viriditas (talk) 12:52, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how you could possibly cover this in the lead in any detail. You could only say something like "Buddhism is the second most diverse of the "classical" religions,[14] and scholars are not agreed on what, if anything, is the common core of its different forms." You could then have a section discussing it in detail. Peter jackson (talk) 12:09, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

See above. You are in the wrong article. Viriditas (talk) 12:55, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I will simply post the exact words used by the scholars cited. People can interpret them for themselves without being dictated to by you or me.

"Burnouf's discovery of the connecting thread among these Buddhist traditions was such a major intellectual feat that it has continued to shape perceptions about those traditions: that despite their superficial differences, they share a common core. Thus the West has perceived Buddhism as a single religion, much like Christianity or Islam, with the differences among its various permutations analogous to the differences among Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox Christians. For more than a century after Burnouf's discovery, Buddhologists-- scholars of the Buddhist tradition- tried to delineate the essential characteristics of that common core, but the data refused to fit into any clearly discernible mold." (Robinson et al, Buddhist Religions, 5th ed, 2004, page xx; more context can be found at User:Spasemunki/Robinsonetal).

"... some historians of Buddhism will likely find unsatisfactory the distinction presented in the introduction between the "vast array of Buddhist religious cultural forms" and its "profound spiritual quest" or "the more fundamental depths of Buddhist experiences" (p. 1). Such language, although widespread, perpetuates the "core philosophy and practice"–versus–"culturally accumulated baggage" picture of Buddhism constructed by early western Buddhologists, implicitly suggesting that scholars can extract this original tradition from later cultural accretions ..." (McMahan, review in Philosophy East and West, volume 54 (2004), pages 269f; context from the book being reviewed can be found at User:Peter jackson/Mitchell).

"There is probably no clear-cut, unchanging core to Buddhist doctrine. Buddhism as a religion in history has no essence ..." (Williams, Mahayana Buddhism, 1st ed, Routledge, 1990, pages 275f; 2nd ed, 2008, page 266, looks about the same; more context can be found in /Archive 6#Essentialism).

"... continuities ... within the tradition. These continuities cannot be found in any static essence or core threading its way through all of Buddhist history." (Macmillan Encyclopedia of Religion, 1987, volume 2, page 336)

Peter jackson (talk) 11:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Pure Land

"Now, note the role given to Pure Land in the context of Mahayana: "The Mahayana tradition encompasses a great many different schools, including the Madhyamika; the Yogacara or Vijnanavada (Vijnaptamatrata); the Avatamsaka school, which recognized the special importance of the Avatamsaka Sutra; a number of different schools that recognized the special authority of the Saddharmapundarika (Lotus Sutra); various Pure Land devotional schools; and several Dhyana (“Meditation”) schools."

I don't understand what point you're making here. The passage lists a numbe of Mahayana schools. So what? Peter jackson (talk) 12:12, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The point is crystal-clear. Even Encyclopædia Britannica does not give as much weight to Pure Land as you do, and they devote a very tiny percentage of their entire article on Buddhism to it and its practices. I also found their overall approach to the topic focused on the commonalities of beliefs and practices, rather than their differences. And the essential teachings of the Buddha are emphasized throughout; All of the things you are fighting against. Viriditas (talk) 12:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Your remarks raise an interesting question that I've posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias#Systemic bias of reliable sources. Peter jackson (talk) 11:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

World Religion

"For example, you cite a source that claims that "Buddhism is the oldest of the great world religions", which of course, isn't true."

You've taken 1/2 a quotation out of context. Here's the full quotation as I posted it on my user page:

"Buddhism is the oldest of the great 'world religions'. Like both the others – Christianity and Islam – it not only addresses itself to all mankind but has found adherents in almost all parts of the world."

Plainly it is the oldest of the 3. The author is using the term "world religion" in an unusual sense, for what Sopher calls "universalizing religions", I would call "universal religions" & other people call "missionary religions" or proselytizing religions". Peter jackson (talk) 12:21, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

How is it possibly helpful to cite ambiguous information that makes a statement that is clearly false? Viriditas (talk) 12:24, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The statement as written is quite true: Buddhism is older than Christianity and Islam. You aren't doing any favors for your case by pursuing this line of argument.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 22:48, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. The statement as it is written is quite false: "Buddhism is the oldest of the great 'world religions'." Please note the full stop. And the added ambiguity of placing such a statement in terms of only Christianity and Islam in the next sentence only makes it useless. I prefer unambiguous statements that are clear in every context they are used. And, I'm not here to do myself any favors. I find much of what Peter writes ambiguous and unclear, which was my point. Viriditas (talk) 03:09, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Sources

"You also cite a source that says "there have been about 10,000,000 Buddhist martyrs, and about 1,811,000 Christians have been martyred by (Mahayana) Buddhists." When asked what this means and for details on the subject, you throw your hands up in the air. So there are just two instances of bad sources for disputed statements you've added to your user page."

It's not my job to explain reliable sources. If you don't like them you can complain to the publisher.

"disputed" by whom? You haven't yet cited a reliable source that disagrees (or even an unreliable one). Peter jackson (talk) 15:53, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Peter jackson (talk) 15:53, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

That's not how we use sources, Peter. If you make a claim using a source, then you need to be able to back it up. We don't just cite content merely because it exists. You persist in citing the World Christian Encyclopedia: a Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World in a discussion on Buddhism. Do you think that is appropriate? And when I ask you to explain the information, you admit that you are unable to do so. So, do you understand Peter, than the fact that a source simply exists does not in any way justify its inclusion? Viriditas (talk) 11:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

"I refer the honourable member to the reply I gave some moments ago." Peter jackson (talk) 11:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

^{[citation needed]} Peter jackson (talk) 11:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

That simply is not how it works, Peter. All reliable sources must meet standard inclusion criteria, including those of authoritativeness, accuracy, and relevance. That you either don't know this or refuse to acknowledge this is extremely troubling. Viriditas (talk) 11:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Life of the Buddha

We're currently at 142,296 bytes, and the article is not only unmanageable, but unreadable. Should the article start with "Life of the Buddha" or some other topic? The prose can be tightened up a bit; I see a lot of needless words. Is the current date of birth correct? I read in another source that it had been adjusted by several centuries, so it should probably read as a range rather than as an exact date. Viriditas (talk) 14:41, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

No, don't start by trimming material out. The way to deal with oversize is to take sections or groups of related sections and move them into a new sub-article. Write a new lede for the sub-article that introduces and summarises its content and, for the time being, copy and paste that summary back into the main, with a link like {{main|new article name}} where the material went from. Works a treat. Now, what are the best new sub-article names? I suggest the current sections 4, 5 and 6 are candidates: History of Buddhism, Schools and traditions of Buddhism and Buddhist texts maybe? --Nigelj (talk) 14:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I see two of these are not red links at the moment, so the issue will involve merging the material from here with what is already there. --Nigelj (talk) 14:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The date is probably wrong. Most scholars now put his death around 400 BC. Peter jackson (talk) 15:24, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Could we get some recent sources on this please? Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 01:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

There is now a more or less established (Gethin, Sayings of the Buddha, Oxford World Classics, 2008, page xv), though not final (Keown & Prebish, eds, Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Routledge, 2007, page 107), consensus for a death date around 400 BC. Peter jackson (talk) 11:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Buddha virtually eradicated caste system:Buddha advocated the theory of ahimsa, shaving the head and face,mixing with all castes by sharing their cooked food given as alms. After Buddha’s death pressures from within and without conspired to turn Buddhism into a religion.During the period of Asoka around the third century it spread to other Asian countries and established itself

as one of the leading religions of the world.But in India the Vedic Hindus retaliated.According to Ambedkar key Buddhist monks were killed so that further propagation of Buddhism should be weakened.All the Buddhist viharas were occupied and Hindu idols installed in them and Caste system brought back.The gods and customs of sudras, Dalits and Adivasis were thus mAarginalized and the cultural integrity of these groups attacked.Buddha never prescribed pure vegetarianism to his followers. The Budhist Sangha people were eating meat, beef, pork, vegetables etc.Udupi’s Pejawara Swamy even now insists that Budhism is anti-Hindu.(Deccan Herald, Nov.3, 2008).--Nrahamthulla (talk) 10:25, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Lead image

I would like to discuss changing the lead image to reflect its adherents, such as a monk, Sangha, or something people-oriented. Viriditas (talk) 08:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Why is their no mention of India in the first few parapgraphs?

In any wikipedia article, basic info should be in the first few parapgrahs. And nowhere in the beggining does it say that Buddhism comes from India or was founded in Ancient India or rose from the Indian sub-continent. Nothing. I have mentineod this before, and sometimes someone puts something like that, and other times its not thier. I mean do some of you people have something against India then? What is going on here. I mean when you go to the Buddha's page it has the info about India then I think. So why not here in the beggining of the article then? 71.105.87.54 (talk) 09:05, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct, and every good source on the subject mentions that Buddhism originated in India or spread out from there to the rest of the world. Please go ahead and add it. I have no idea why anyone would remove it, so you better believe I will be going through the edit history to see who did this. Viriditas (talk) 09:30, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Update: It was removed by Bluehotel (talk · contribs) on September 30, 2009.[15] Viriditas (talk) 09:36, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Update: Added some back in, per your suggestion. Viriditas (talk) 09:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Where the Buddha was born or lived is really not hugely significant to the issue of 'Buddhism', nor to the teaching. We know that he lived in north east of the Indian subcontinent, and this can be mentioned but it is not of any real importance in having in the lead. The topic necessarily emerges when talking of the teaching since the Buddha's teaching is also partly a reaction to brahmanism and a rejection of the validity of the Veda's and caste system. Also, 'India' as a whole did not exist at that time as a unified entity, and furthermore soures indicate the Buddha actually was born in Nepal, not modern India. Hence I am editing to acknowledeg these points. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 21:14, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

It's important precisely for the reasons you mention, but I feel you've added too much detail to the lead with the new edits. Most tertiary sources mention the origin of Buddism in India at a certain time, and I see no reason why we shouldn't either. Viriditas (talk) 03:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes although their was no country named India their was still a land of a certain people. Maybe Bharat. Maybe Land of the Aryans. Maybe Hindustand later. But you have to call it something becuase it is a land. So India makes sense. Or you can say Ancient India? Or you can say the Indian subcontinent.....and by the way....if you want to go by your logic, that their was no India then, do you know how impratical that is? Their was no Europe name back then. Their was no Africa name back then. Their was no Austrailia name back then. (if their was im not sure) but the point is lots of names today don't have name's that were their back then. But you still know that some places have names that are commonly understood to represent a total history. 71.105.87.54 (talk) 10:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe the current version meets your expectations. Please review it. Viriditas (talk) 10:25, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Buddhism as Philosophy

OK, how about this: Outside of colloquial usage, there is no such thing as "a philosophy". Philosophy is a study, a systematic examination of questions and problematics, a process. As such, Buddhism may be constituted in part by a body of philosophical ideas, work, and thought – by the Buddha himself as well as several subsequent Buddhist thinkers – but to say that Buddhism (or anything else – existentialism, whatever) is a philosophy is a misuse of the word in a formal context. Please review my recent (reverted) changes and suggest improvements. /ninly (talk) 15:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand where you are coming from with this strange argument. Buddhism and existentialism are both considered philosophical systems, and there are more than enough sources on this topic to support it. Viriditas (talk) 07:45, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

So are you posting these points on all the philosophy articles on wikipedia like 'existentialism', metaphysics etc' as well? That would be a very time consuming and unneccesary activity. The word philosphy adaquately defines the meaning. You could make exactly the same argument about the use of the term religion. Afterall, the word 'religion' is a western concept largely based on how Christinity is viewed. The word doesn't really have an equivalent in Asian languages and hence it may be inappropriate to refer to another cultures traditions with it since it is unlikely to match what those countries practitioners define it as. So both the terms 'religion' and 'philosophy' may be problematic with regards to Buddhism. Yet we can agree that with reagrds to a western terminology, it would be hard to find closer descriptive terms.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 19:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm doing no such thing (posting these points on all phil. articles) because existentialism, phenomenology, and metaphysics, among others, are presented as trends or topics within the history and development of philosophy, rather than as totalizing schemas. Objectivism is an exception, and I don't like the usage there, either, but my interests are here.

To be clear, my issue is with the usage "[something] is ... a philosophy", which strikes me as informal and imprecise, particularly for an intro paragraph -- "philosophical system" (thanks Viriditas) is definitely better, though it still begs the questions about commonalities/core being discussed elsewhere. Note that many points of philosophical theory have been disputed or developed by different Buddhist schools over the centuries. /ninly (talk) 00:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Reminder of policy (WP:V):

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed."

Peter jackson (talk) 11:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I fully subscribe to and support WP's guidelines on verifiability and reliability. Perhaps I should be clear that my concerns more or less strictly involve usage and clarity of the language used here -- i'm a copyeditor. Assuming something is sourced and appropriate to an article (not to say I do assume that), my main interest is that it be cast as clearly and neutrally as possible within our article.

With regard to claiming Buddhism as a philosophical system -- Assuming there is consensus that such a claim is reliably sourced, my concern is the best way to word the assertion; in doing so I consider the connotations of the words used in the local context. If the assertion gets removed altogether, based on a lack of sources or consensus about its inclusion, that's ultimately fine with me. Apologies, as I really don't wish to confuse or complicate the WP:V and WP:RS debate; it's just not my particular interest right now. /ninly (talk) 17:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Numbered lists

The use of numbered lists throughout this article is excessive and unprecedented. I am not aware of any GA or FA on religion or philosophy that uses this format and this style is not encyclopedic. I suggest that the vast majority of such lists are converted to prose, with the use of prose in introductory paragraphs instead of embedded lists. It's time to bring this article inline with standard formatting and layout conventions. Viriditas (talk) 10:23, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree to a point, but I will suggest (and correct me if I'm wrong) that perhaps Buddhism is somewhat unique in the prominence of ordered lists in many of its conceptual basics (four noble truths, eightfold path, three jewels, five/eight/ten precepts, twelve nidanas, etc.). Prose may detract from the significance of their ordering or increase wordiness and ease of navigation – just something to consider. That said, some of these lists could definitely be cast in a prose style (in particular, the introduction of "31 planes of existence" – followed by a numbered list of only six items – and the part about the Middle Way). /ninly (talk) 18:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I just spent the last two days pouring through secondary and tertiary sources on the subject, and Wikipedia is the only place that uses this format. My main concern is not the unique style, but readability. It looks good as an outline, but not as an encyclopedia article. Most of these numbered lists have their own articles, and readers can be directed there for more information. Viriditas (talk) 05:45, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The Foundation of the Practice

The foundation of the practice is ethical conduct. One need not formally take refuge in the triple gem in order to put the teachings into practice. There are many today who practice Buddhist meditation yet have not taken refuge in the triple gem. Likewise there are many who put the ethical teachings into practice or have been influenced by Buddhist teachings, yet have never heard of taking refuge. The common bond of the practice is however ethics which comes first and foremost. This is what unifies those who have been influenced to put Buddhist teachings into practice, whether to a small extent or large, and whether they have formally 'taken refuge' or not. There are also many many people who have formally 'taken refuge' yet do not put the teachigns into practice at all. Most people born in countries with strong Buddhist tradition such as Sri Lanka, Thailand etc will take refuge as a formality. However, many of these do notput anything into practice at all. On the other hand, there are many who live by the teachings but have not formally taken refuge. Therfore the teaching is about first putting ethics into practice, the formality of taking refuge is often just that- an empty formality. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 21:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok first, I pretty much totally agree with your main point, but at best this is WP:OR unless you can come up with objective verifiable references, and at worst very much POV. Second I doubt anyone who seriously studies Buddhism and its history would say "The foundation of all Buddhist practice is ethical conduct and altruism."(emphasis is mine), just look up Ikkō-ikki for an example of a non-altruistic sect of Buddhism. Or for a more modern example try these guys who perpetrated a mass murder and claim to be Buddhists. I'm not saying what you have written is not true, because that realy doesn't matter, I'm just saying that it needs to be:

Other than that I think you make some good valid points, but that is still original research so it doesn't matter if your right or not.

As I subscribe to the 1RR I would preffer not to revert this again, so I ask either KnowledgeAndVision to reword and reference, or anyone else to revert. Thanks, Colincbn (talk) 01:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It's original research, and I've reverted it. Per WP:LEAD, section zero is a summary of the most important parts of the article, and the article states that the foundation of Buddhist practice is the triple gem, of which ethics and altruism are a subset of the dharma. Please understand, the lead section is not the place to put new or disputed claims. There is no question that the foundation of Buddhist practice is the triple gem, and your opinion on the matter is just that, an opinion. I'm frankly quite surprised at KnowledgeAndVision's edits as the editor is essentially saying that one does not need to be a Buddhist to be a Buddhist. While this is certainly an interesting line of thought (and true), it is not appropriate for the lead section in an article on Buddhism, nor does it reflect the mainstream concept of Buddhism. While I appreciate and respect the opinion of KnowledgeAndVision on this matter, it does not represent a conventional view on the subject. The sources are quite clear on the triple gem, and the statement in the lead is currently reflected in the body. It is the responsibility of the editor making controversial or disputed claims that are not properly referenced or reflected by the subject, to use the talk page to reach a consensus on the matter before repeatedly reinserting the same material. Therefore, in this instance, the burden of proof resides with KnowledgeAndVision and I await proper references and sourcing for these claims. After reviewing comments by KnowledgeAndVision, it appears that the editor is talking about their own private and personal experience with Buddhism, rather than writing about Buddhism from a neutral point of view based on sources. Lastly, KnowledgeAndVision seems to see taking refuge as something altogether different than what it actually is. There can be no doubt that it is a true foundation for Buddhists, in the true meaning of the word, such as "the basis on which something is grounded", or "the act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new", or even "the fundamental assumptions from which something is begun or developed or calculated or explained." This is true. So either KnowledgeAndVision misunderstands the term "foundation" here or views it differently than it is commonly used. Not only do the teachings of the Buddha reflect this understanding, but so do the sources. For only one example, American Buddhist writer and academic Robert Thurman writes:

The Three Jewels are the foundation of all forms of Buddhism, and the first jewel is the Buddha...the most important element of Buddha to us, until we become buddhas ourselves, is that Buddha is a teacher, and he gives us a teaching...a set of methods that we can use to develop ourselves, to learn, to think over, to meditate upon, and finally, to gain deep, profound, transforming insight, wisdom, and understanding...We take refuge in the Buddha...we turn to the teaching...of the possibility of happiness...in whatever form it comes to us...the second refuge-we take refuge in the Dharma...Virtues and ethics and practices are also Dharma...the real jewel of refuge in Buddhism...we take refuge in reality, the second jewel...The third jewel is the Sangha, the community of those who enjoy the jewels of refuge, who learn the teaching, seek that understanding, and work to embody the Dharma.[16]

This is just a small snippet from Thurman, but you see the point. Ethics and altruism are contained within the second jewel, but remain rooted in the first until our own awakening, with help, encouragement, and support from the third. This is the foundation of Buddhism. Viriditas (talk) 10:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Thurman is indeed an academic, but is he wearing his academic hat in this book? Here's the opening paragraph in the overview given in the link.

"Few teachers in the West possess both the spiritual training and the scholarship to lead us along the path to enlightenment. Robert Thurman is one such teacher. Now, in his first experiential course on the essentials of Tibetan Buddhism, adapted and expanded from a popular retreat he led, Thurman -- the first Westerner ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself -- shares the centuries-old wisdom of a highly valued method used by the great Tibetan masters. Using a revered, once-secret text of a seventeenth-century Tibetan master, along with a thorough explanation for contemporary Westerners, The Jewel Tree of Tibet immerses you fully in the mysteries of Tibetan spiritual wisdom. A retreat in book form as well as a spiritual and philosophical teaching, it offers a practical system of understanding yourself and the world, of developing your learning and thought processes, and of gaining deep, transforming insight."

That doesn't sound like an academic book to me. Peter jackson (talk) 11:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Robert Thurman is Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University[17] with 35 years of scholarship in the field, and President of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies. He was called "the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism" by the New York Times.[18], [19] Please note that the source is not being used in this article, regardless of what you think of it. But let's get down to brass tacks, Peter. Do you disagree that the three jewels is the foundation of Buddhism? Viriditas (talk) 11:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

My opinions, like yours, are irrelevant to the article. Peter jackson (talk) 11:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Opinions, supported by sources, are relevant, and help improve this article. For example, the supporting opinion of Charles S. Prebish, in Contemporary American Religion (1999), who writes: "While the specifics of the sectarian stories differ, the Buddha established a way of life based on what has come to be known as the "Three Jewels": Buddha, his teachings (called dharma), and his community (called sangha)." The importance of the metaphor of the jewel cannot be overemphasized. Brian Ruppert in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism (2003) explains:

...Jewels occupy important narrative and ritual spaces throughout the history of Buddhism...Buddhists incorporated jewels into their teachings as part of a discourse on value...The Buddha routinely employed the metaphor of the jewel (ratna) in a variety of sutras to refer to the unlimited value of enlightened wisdom...the jewel was often used as a metaphor to depict the conquest of death that is accomplished in Buddhist liberation...to illustrate enlightened vision of the absolute character of the interpenetration of all phenomena (dharma)..the jewel was also used in the phrase "Three Jewels" (triratna) to refer to the Buddhist tradition in its three basic, most treasured aspects: Buddha, his teaching (dharma), and his community (sangha).

So, we see Thurman's "foundation", Prebish's "way of life", and Ruppert's "three basic, most treasured aspects" of Buddhism are the Three Jewels, and we understand the importance of the jewel metaphor and its significance to Buddhism. Viriditas (talk) 12:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

'Taking refuge', in the true sense of the meaning, is to put the teachings of the Buddha into practice. However, many who go through the formality of taking refuge (i.e the ritual of bowing 3 times to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha) in Buddhist countries do not put anything into practice at all. Hence they are not really 'taking refuge', they are merely reciting the name of the Buddha Dharma sangha. Simliarly, many practice meditation without formally taking refuge. Yes it is true- one need not be a 'buddhist' to practice the teachings. In actual fact there is no such thing as a 'Buddhist', at least according to what we can ascertain to be the original teachings. Buddhist practice is grounded in ethics, whether this is seen as 'original research' depends on whether it has been discussed in academia which I am quite sure it has . However there is also no doubt that the practice is also rooted in the Buddha, Dharma and sangha. One may say that the Buddha and knowledge of the Dharma is a necessary prerequisite for undertaking practice, but not necessarily 'taking refuge' in them. Taking refuge in the triple gem is mainly understood as a formal declaration and ritual in Buddhist countries. Clealry, one can be influneced and practice Buddhist teachings without being a 'Buddhist'. One can put Buddhist teachings into practice without 'taking refuge'. One can simply be inlfuneced by them and put them into practice. Therfore to say that the foundation of all Buddhist practice such as practicing meditation is 'taking refuge in the triple gem' is false. It may be said that the foundation of the practice is the triple gem itself, but taking refuge in them is another matter. If someone were to practice vipassana, that does not mean they have 'taken refuge in the triple gem'. However, it does mean they are putting Buddhist teachigns into practice. This is not a matter of original researh it is reasoning and logic. So we can see that putting the teaching into practice need not require 'taking refuge', it only requires having some degree of confidence in the teachings. And there is both modern day evidence as well as evidence from the sutta's to support this. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 21:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I have just reverted your last edit[20] which is based on your own personal opinion rather than on reliable sources. You are interpreting the act of "taking refuge" in your own way, and as long as you have sources for that interpretation, everything is ok. But you don't, and you are pushing your POV into this article. Since your edits are disputed, please propose your changes here with sources first, and allow discussion to take place. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 21:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

If you can find references that support the view that everyone who practices vipassana has 'taken refuge in the triple gem' then you are alright. Otherwise you seem to be misunderstanding the practice and are yourself pushing only your personal opinion and view without a basis. The wording must then be changed to say something along the lines of "It is generally regarded that taking refuge in the triple gem is an outward declaration of being a 'buddhist' and making a comittment to practice". However, what I am stating is that in order to put Buddhist teachings into practice, one must first have some degree of confidence in the Buddha and Dharma. Without this one will not practice. It is the conrfidence in the teachings that is the foundation.

There is clear evidence from the sutta's for this for example the Kandaraka sutta (p6)[21]. Here, Kessa listens to the teachings and the Buddha says he gains benefit- however he does not take refuge in the triple gem he only respectfully salutes the Buddha. This contrasts with the ending of many sutta's where the listener states clearly at the end "I go to the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha for refuge' . So the Sutta's clearly distinguiosh between the two. Hence this is a clear scriptural example of someone aquiring confidence in the Buddha and his teaching enough to put them into practice and benefit but not taking refuge. This situation is found many times in the Suttas. So like I said, either you can find sources that explain both of these points, or else your view is incorrect and mainly a POV misunderstaing of what 'taking refuge' means.KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 09:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, looking at your contributions, I see you've only been here since the end of April and you've got less than 400 edits, which means you've been editing for about seven months. I apologize. For some reason, I thought you had been here long enough to understand the problem with your above argument. So let me explain. What you are doing is what we call "original research". The term may seem strange, as our definition of the concept is unique to Wikipedia. I recommend that you take a moment to read WP:OR and get familiar with it. After you read it, please take a look at WP:V and WP:RS. Finally, get to know WP:NPOV. We do not edit articles based on our reading of primary sources, like the suttas. What we do, is cite the best sources we can find, and use them. So, if you think your opinion has merit, please find a source that reflects your view. I am willing to help you, but you need to become familiar with how we write articles. You say above that I have to "find references that support" your view, but that's not how it works. The burden of proof is on the editor adding information. So, if you feel that the established, accepted criteria of taking refuge is not acceptable to you, please find a good secondary source that explains your position. We cannot interpret primary sources as you are doing. Wikipedia is a tertiary sources that relies on secondary sources. Keep in mind, if your opinion on this matter is significant or important, other writers will have published something on the topic. If what I am saying is not making sense, ask questions and I will explain in more detail or point you to editors who can help you. Let me put this another way: If you can condense/boil down into one sentence the exact change you are requesting, we can work together to make it happen. But you need to be precise in your request, and you need to find sources to support it. If you can add the statement below this comment, I will try to help you find sources for it. But please, be very specific with your request for a change. No lengthy comment on the change is needed. Just add the exact words below this comment so I can see it. Viriditas (talk) 10:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I am fully aware of the Wikipedia policy and citing shcolarly sources. What I am adressing is your misunderstanding of what constitutes 'Buddhist practice', and how to use sources to support what one is saying. So lets clarify it for you now. Scholarly sources have to support the claims made on wikipedia. If the sources do not match the claims that are being made, then either new sources must be found in support of these claims, or else the claims themselves must be removed or reworded. Please review some of the policy you mentioned such as WP:OR, WP:V and WP:RS so that you can correctly understand how this apllies to Wikiedpia and distinguish between 'origianl reseacrh' and interpretation of current research. So your claim that all 'Buddhist practice' is reliant on taking refuge in the triple gem is not substantiated by any of the sources currently on wikipedia. If you can find a source for example that says all those who practice vipassana have taken refuge in the triple gem, then your claim that all buddhist practice is based on refuge in the triple gem would be correct. Otherwise it is simply misunderstanding what the sources are actually saying as it is not supported by any of the sources. This is not a matter of 'original reserach'- it is a matter of correctly understaning what the established research is actually claiming, which is where you have been lacking. Again, let me clarify. There is a difference between:

1/. Buddhist practice and

2/. Being or considering onself a 'Buddhist'

So you have added a statement that is not supported by the sources. Therefore there is no burden of proof for me to find new sources, since the current sources already support what I am saying.

The topic of being a Buddhist is itself problematic since there is no real traditional equivalent. However, we could assert that taking refuge in the triple gem is a good indicator of being or considering oneself a 'Buddhist'. This however is not necessary, nor a foundation for Buddhist practice, such as practicing the teachings or meditation. This is clearly demonstrated by both the primary sources as well as modern practice. Stating this is not new research, rather it is about understanding what the current research actually says. So essentially you are misundersating what the scholarly sources are saying. The schoarly sources are not saying that refuge in the triple gem is the foundation of Buddhist practice. They support the view that some degree of confidence in the Buddha and his teaching is the foundation of Buddhist practice, but that taking refuge is more or less equivalent to formally stating or considering oneself a 'Buddhist'. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 11:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Nobody has made any such claims, and no claims are being misrepresented. For the second time, we cannot interpret primary sources on Wikipedia. We use secondary sources to reflect scholarly opinion. If you can point me to the scholars who support your view, I will consider their inclusion. Is this making sense? Viriditas (talk) 11:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not simply the primary sources, it is correctly interpreting the secondary sources as well. Currently the lead says that 'taking refuge in the triple gem is the foundation of Buddhist practice'- this is neither supported by primary or secondary sources. What the secondary sources say, is that taking refuge is equivalent to declaring or considering oneself a Buddhist. And as I have said, one need not consider oneself a 'Buddhist' in order to put Buddhist teachings into pratice. Hence both the primary and secondary sources that are here support only that the foundation of all Buddhist practice, whether one considers oneself a 'Buddhist' or not is to have confindence in the Buddha and Dharma not necessarliy to the extent of 'taking refuge' in them. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 11:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It is, in fact, supported by primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, so I don't what you are saying. I'm still waiting for you to produce sources for your position. You've stated your opinion several times, now please back it up. Viriditas (talk) 11:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Since you are unable to help provide sources to backup what you are saying, I'm trying to help you. Here are other formulations I have found in addition to the ones above.

Overview

"For over two thousand years, the simple recitation of "going for refuge" - Buddha Saranam Gacchami ("I go for refuge in the Buddha"), Dharma Saranam Gacchami ("I go for refuge in the Teachings"), and Sangha Saranam Gacchami ("I go for refuge in the Community") - has marked an individual's conversion to Buddhism and the start of Buddhist rituals. Today these three repetitions are still heard across Asia and increasingly beyond, in Japan and Nepal, from Mongolia to Thailand, by immigrants and converts to the West." (169)[22] -Orlando Espin (Editor), James B. Nickoloff. (2007). An Introductory Dictionary of Theology and Religious Studies

Ancient India

"The canonical Nikāya literature makes a concerted attempt to inculcate a sense of moral and ethical values among the laity, based on Buddhist ethics and loyalty to the Triratna (three jewels), that is, the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Discourses contained in the Brahmajāla Sutta and the Samannaphala Sutta of the Dīgha Nikāya emphasize the importance of adhering to the five shīlas, or moral values, and stress that the lay devotee should concentrate on religious talks on the fortnightly uposatha days...The involvement of Ashoka with the dharma was by no means limited to propagation of an ethical way of life, as is evident from his records. Minor Rock Edict III was addressed to the Sangha and the laity, and it contains an unequivocal expression of the emperor's respect and faith in the "three jewels." -Himanshu Ray. (2006). "Buddhism in Ancient India". Encyclopedia of India. Ed. Stanley Wolpert. Vol. 1.

Bhutan

"A person first becomes a Buddhist by taking refuge in the Three Jewels...This is done in early childhood before a lama, who cuts the tip of the person's hair and gives him or her a new name. Bhutanese Buddhists use names received from a lama in this manner and do not share family names. The practice of taking refuge and naming is often repeated several times in a person's lifetime as a ritual of blessing...It is through taking refuge in the Three Jewels—accepting the Buddha as the teacher, the dharma as the path, and the sangha as the companions on the path—that one truly becomes a Buddhist. Most Bhutanese, however, consider themselves to be Buddhists by birth." - Karma Phuntsho. (2005). Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices. Ed. Thomas Riggs. Vol. 2.

Dharma

"Taking this triple refuge is nowadays an essential criterion for being considered a Buddhist. The dharma is the truth and protector. The Buddha is the teacher of the dharma and becomes its personification. The disciples were advised to take the dharma as their guide after the Buddha's death. The dharma is the essence of the Buddha. Upon discovering the dharma, Śākyamuni attained buddhahood. The sangha, the monastic order, puts dharma into practice in daily life." -Charles Willemen. (2004). "Dharma and Dharmas". Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. Vol. 1.

"Dharma, together with the Buddha and the samgha, constitute a "threefold jewel" (triratna) before which one makes prostrations and in which one takes refuge. Here dharma does not so much represent a body of teachings as it assumes a character of awesomeness, protection, and deliverance wholly appropriate to the Truth. One stands in awe of dharma as a self-sustained righteousness whose universal legacy is to protect through its righteousness those who profess it. Soon after his enlightenment, realizing that there is no one more perfect than himself in virtue, wisdom, and meditation under whom he could live in obedience and reverence, Sākyamuni decided that he would live honoring and revering dharma, the universal truth he had just realized. As one of the Three Jewels, the Buddha is dharma's embodied personification, revealer, and teacher. The samgha constitutes a body of dharma's followers among whom dharma thrives as the norm of daily life, becoming an inspiration and a path to deliverance. The Three Jewels as conceived in the early period can be paralleled, as a somewhat general comparison, with the later concept of the three buddha bodies. Dharma as dharmakāya represents its own sublime and absolute aspect, the Buddha as a sambhogakāya represents the pure and glorified state of dharma, and the samgha as nirmānakāya represents dharma as discovered and operating within the world." - Tadeusz Skorupski. (2005). "Dharma: Buddhist Dharma and Dharmas". Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 4. 2nd ed.

Japan

"In attempts to identify what it is that Buddhists share and that makes them Buddhist, one of the most commonly cited and least controversial candidates is the custom of taking refuge in the "three jewels'"...It is probably the case that virtually all Buddhists would accept this custom as part of their religion, though the fact that it is not very controversial should warn us that it may also not be very important, and in any case their acceptance tells us little about what they might mean by it. Still, in beginning to sort out some of our options for understanding the issue of unity and diversity in the tradition, it might be helpful for heuristic purposes to bear in mind the schema of the three jewels and the distinctive models for interdenominational accomodation that seem to be suggested by each of the three kinds of refuge." - Carl Bielefeldt. (1990). "The One Vehicle and the Three Jewels: On Japanese Sectarianism and Some Ecumenical Alternatives". Buddhist-Christian Studies. University of Hawai'i Press. Vol. 10, (1990), pp. 5-16.

Puja

"The fundamental declaration for Buddhists is taking refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddhas, the truth that they understand and teach, and the community that preserves that teaching." - William Tuladhar-Douglas. (2005). "Pūjā: Buddhist Pūjā". Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 11. 2nd ed.

Zen

"Usually, it is said that a deep faith in the three treasures is the foundation of Buddhist religious life."(86)[23] - Sung Bae Park, Assistant Professor of East Asian Religions at the Center for Religious Studies, State University of New York at Stony Brook.[24]

Vajrayana

"...taking refuge [in the Three Jewels] is the indispensable foundation for all Buddhist precepts. Taking refuge marks the difference between being a Buddhist or a non-Buddhist. And without depending upon the protection of these objects of refuge, there is no way to attain emancipation from samsara." - Jamgon Kongtrul, Light of Wisdom, Volume 1 [25]

The zen quote from a Buddhist studies scholar more or less refers to what I am describing. Confidence or 'deep faith' (not blind as we have discussed) as a prerequisite to practice.

The second from a Tibetan Lama defines taking refuge as a distinction between being a 'Buddhist' or not. This is generally how it is understood. However as we have said, being a 'buddhist' is not necessary to put buddhist teachings into practice so this really only reinforces the point I made that taking refuge is akin to 'being a buddhist' not to practicing buddhist teachings. The other sources also all say that 'taking refuge' is akin to being a buddhist, not to 'puttung Buddhist teachings into practice'. Again, there is no need for any additional sources as the current sources already support this. If the opening section is to be accurate, it can be said that 'taking refuge in the triple gem is a declaration or recognition of being a 'Buddhist'. However, the foundation of putting teachings into practice comes from first some level of confidence or conviction/faith in the Buddha and dharma. Taking refuge is something that occurs either at a latter stage for some who practice Buddhist teachings, or not at all for others. Again I reiterate- one need not be 'on the buddhist path' or be 'a buddhist' in order to practice the teachings. Taking refuge is therefore a foundation of 'being on the Buddhist path'. Confidence in the Budhha and his teachings is the foundation of putting it into practice either as a 'Buddhist' or not.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 13:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Take a close look at what one of those sources actually says:

"it may also not be very important, and in any case their acceptance tells us little about what they might mean by it." So is there any point in having it in the lead? Peter jackson (talk) 18:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Peter, you are quoting a 1990 interfaith article on Buddhism in Japan by Carl Bielefeldt, and he actually says, "the fact that it is not very controversial should warn us that it may also not be very important, and in any case their acceptance tells us little about what they might mean..." After this, he goes on for 1-2 pages, in detail about the Three Jewels, but his analysis is somewhat untraditional, and is more of an opinion piece. I have the original article, and if you would like me to share a copy with you in e-mail, please contact me. His opinion on the matter is not as simple as you are making it out to be. Viriditas (talk) 05:10, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not making it out to be anything. I merely quoted verbatim from a passage visible above quoted by KV. Peter jackson (talk) 14:51, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

But, Peter. I'm the one who quoted the passage, and it is taken out of wider context related to Japanese Buddhism. If you would like to review the entire article and come to a more informed opinion on the matter, then I would be happy to send it to you. Otherwise you can find it on JSTOR. Viriditas (talk) 22:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't actually realized you were the one who quoted it, as you forgot to sign it (as I do occasionally). The next signature visible was KV's.

All I did was draw people's attention to a portion of your long posting, which many people probably didn't bother reading. Readers are perfectly capable of looking back at the context above, & any more you think worth posting here. Peter jackson (talk) 11:45, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I just finished telling you that I took it out of context, so no, they are not capable of looking at it in context. Viriditas (talk) 09:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

They can see the context I took it out of, i.e. the passage you quoted. If that's itself out of context, that's your responsibility, not mine.

In fact all citations on Wikipedia are out of context. Unless the source is very short & easily accessible, readers can't reasonably be expected to verify that, in context, the source really means what it appears to be saying. And in no case can readers ever verify that other RSs don't disagree with the one(s) cited. Verifiability is a fraud. Peter jackson (talk) 11:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

You raise an interesting point that you should pursue on the policy talk page, however proving a negative is not necessary. If a source does conflict with the cited one, that's when we further evaluate it in context, as I have been trying to explain to you. Viriditas (talk) 12:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Reminder

""The dramatic growth in scholarship on Buddhism over the past half century, both in the quantity and the quality of that scholarship, has made it virtually impossible for a single scholar to claim knowledge of the entire tradition across its vast geographical and chronological sweep." (Lopez, (Story of) Buddhism, Harper/Penguin, 2001, page ix)

So statements about Buddhism as a whole are tertiary, not primary. Peter jackson (talk) 11:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Peter, I have no idea where you are getting that from, but on Wikipedia, primary, secondary, and tertiary have a specific meaning. It is true, however, that they may refer to something else outside of Wikipedia, so please familiarize yourself with how we use them here. Viriditas (talk) 11:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I see I accidentally wrote primary instead of secondary.

Here's the policy (WP:PSTS):

"Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

For the purposes of Wikipedia policies and guidelines, primary, secondary and tertiary sources are defined as follows:^[1]^[2]

Primary sources are sources very close to an event. For example, an account of a traffic accident written by a witness is a primary source of information about the accident. Other examples include archeological artifacts; photographs; historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; original philosophical works; religious scripture; published notes of laboratory and field experiments or observations written by the person(s) who conducted or observed the experiments; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs. The key point about a primary source is that it offers an insider's view to an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on.^[3]

Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages from the novel to describe the plot, but any interpretation of those passages needs a secondary source. Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about information found in a primary source.

Secondary sources are at least one step removed from an event. They rely for their facts and opinions on primary sources, often to make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims.^[4]^[5]^[6]

Our policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from secondary sources. Articles may include analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims if they have been published by a reliable secondary source.

Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias or other compendia that mainly summarize secondary sources. For example, Wikipedia itself is a tertiary source. Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks may also be considered tertiary sources, to the extent that they sum up multiple secondary sources.

Our policy: Tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources. Some tertiary sources may be more reliable than others, and within any given tertiary source, some articles may be more reliable than others. WP:Verifiability#Reliable sources describes the criteria for assessing the reliability of sources. Articles and posts on Wikipedia, or on websites that mirror its content, may not be used as sources; see Wikipedia:Verifiability#Wikipedia and sources that mirror or source information from Wikipedia.

Unsourced material obtained from a Wikipedian's personal experience, such as an unpublished eyewitness account, should not be added to articles. It would violate both this policy and Verifiability, and would cause Wikipedia to become a primary source for that material.

Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are more suitable on any given occasion is a matter of common sense and good editorial judgment, and should be discussed on article talk pages."

Note in particular this sentence:

"Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks may also be considered tertiary sources, to the extent that they sum up multiple secondary sources."

Peter jackson (talk) 12:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It's nice to be on the same page for once. Let's hope this trend continues. Viriditas (talk) 12:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed change

It is generally regarded that taking refuge in the triple gem is an outward declaration of being a 'buddhist' and making a comittment to practice.
- What is the purpose of this change and why is the current wording inaccurate? Please respond with claims attributed to claimants and sources. Viriditas (talk) 10:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

As per the above discussion, the change would reflect what the sources actually say. 'Buddhist practice' encompasses far more than just what 'Buddhists' do. It also encompasses buddhist meditation practice done by those who would not condsider themselves buddhists. No one would argue that vipassana meditation is not a Buddhist practice. Likewise no one would argue that everyone who practices vipassana is a 'buddhist who has taken refuge in the three jewels'.

The statement, It is generally regarded that taking refuge in the triple gem is an outward declaration of being a 'buddhist' and making a comittment to practice, would reflect what taking refuge in the triple gem means, as in basically 'being a buddhist'. However, if the statement is about the foundation of all buddhist practice, as in all practice directy based on buddhist teachings such as practciing vipassana meditation, then one could only accurately say that

The foundation of all buddhist practice is having confidence in the Buddha and his teaching.

I wouldn't even say that one need necessarily have confidence in the 'sangha'.

So one or the other must be reworded in line with the sources.KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 14:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, let's make an effort to cut down on the whitespace and keep the discussion short and to the point, with an emphasis on moving towards resolution. There's a lot to do, and this seems fairly insignificant and is holding up improving the rest of the article. Now, let's get down to brass tacks. The wording currently says, "The foundation of Buddhist practice is based on taking refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma (the teachings), and the Sangha (the community)." Please explain what is wrong with the wording, using secondary or tertiary sources to support your view. A detailed response is not necessary, simply state what is wrong in one or two sentences and recommend a change with sources. That's it. Viriditas (talk) 05:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The argument is quite clear as stated above. If you still don't get what is wrong with the wording after all that has been described above, then I won't be able to help you further. It comes down to the fact that one does not need to be or consider oneself a 'buddhist' in order to practice Buddhist teachings. All of the above secondary sources that have been posted support this. All of these secondary sources say that refuge in the three jewels is akin to 'being a buddhist', not to putting the teachings into practice. So again, the current wording as it stands is incorrect. Unless you can provide a source that says that all those who practice vipassana have taken refuge in the triple gem, I will revert in line with the sources. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 16:22, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, we're making progress. First of all, your argument can be made about any religion, so it is not unique to Buddhism. As an encyclopedia article, the lead should summarize the most important points related to Buddhism, and these are usually unique or specific to Buddhist thought, such as the Three Jewels. Now, let's try to move forward on this. Do you see your argument represented in the body of the article? If it isn't, you will need to find good sources for it and write about it, otherwise it should not be in the lead. Is this making sense? You also seem to be challenging the accuracy of the statement itself based on your understanding/experience with vipassana. Can you show me a good secondary source regarding this challenge so I can make a correction? Please note that the statement does not say anything about vipassana, but is preceded by a clarification that states that "Buddhist schools vary significantly in the exact nature of the path of liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices." Is that not clear enough? I thought we already covered this. But you continue to maintain that the foundation of Buddhist practice is not the Three Jewels? How can that be? Is not vipassana a part of Theravāda Buddhism, for whom the Three Jewels are a solid foundation? Are you speaking from your own experience or from the sources? Please clarify this point for me. You say above that "refuge in the three jewels is akin to 'being a buddhist', not to putting the teachings into practice", but this very faith in the Three Jewels is part of the practice. Sheng-yen writes: "'Taking refuge' in the Three Jewels confirms one as a Buddhist practitioner. Faith in the Three Jewels is the recognition that the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha are contained within all sentient beings."[26] Interesting words, "contained within all sentient beings." It would take insight into the nature of reality to see the fruits of this faith, and as vipassana practitioners study Buddhist teachings, this faith in the three jewels is also part of their practice. I am fairly certain that vipassana practitioners meditate on going for refuge, so I'm still not clear on your point. Viriditas (talk) 23:00, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The issue boils down to the words and meaning of 'taking refuge'. I have said that confdence in the three jewels, or even just the Buddha and dharma is the foundation of the practice. Confidence in the three jewels, is different from, taking refuge in the three jewels. As all of the sources have stated, 'taking refuge' is akin to an assertion and declaration of being a 'buddhist'. There are many many vipassana oragnisations that teach buddhist meditation to people devoid of mentioning the three jewels at all. Many of the people who go on these courses or maintain a vipassana practice are clearly not buddhists. Yet they are clearly doing a buddhist practice. So 'taking refuge' does not apply to them. Taking refuge, both in historical sources and in present day tradition, has a specific meaning of basically a declarion of being a buddhist. One could thus say that the three jewels are the foundation of Buddhist practice - this is different form saying that taking refuge in the three jewels is the foundation of buddhist practice. The second version ignores the specific meaning of taking refuge within Buddhist tradition, whilst the first version could accurately describe all the comes under the term 'buddhist practice'. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 18:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the detailed comment. You're really getting to the heart of the matter now, which is good. But let me ask you, which vipassana organizations never mention the Three Jewels? We can't really assert something like that without sources. Do you have a reference that explicitly talks about the Three Jewels in the way you are describing? As I said previously, it sounds like you are talking about your own experience, and we can't write articles from that POV. Let's stick to your main point. You are arguing that the Three Jewels are not the "foundation of practice", so what words would you use instead? Please offer sources to support your view. Viriditas (talk) 05:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I have followed with interest the discussion between Viriditas and KAV. While I ultimately agree with Viriditas that taking refuge in the Three Jewels is indeed central to Buddhist practice, I can also see what KAV means: there are lots of people who pluck bits and pieces from the totality of Buddhism and incorporate those chunks of Dharma into their lives without considering themselves 'Buddhist'. As KAV says, this could include the practice of vipassana (or shamatha). But I suspect that Viriditas (and KAV?) would agree with me when I comment that taking some discrete and disassociated parts of Buddhism and incorporating them into one's life is not the mark of a 'Buddhist'. As Viriditas has said, this article is about 'Buddhism' (not 'meditational borrowings from Buddhism in the modern world'). For Buddhism in general, taking refuge in the Three Jewels is truly foundational (this applies to Theravada and most Mahayana). To resolve the problem, what do you think of the following verbal formulation: 'Generally, a foundational element in the Buddhist's practice and faith is constituted by the "taking of refuge" in the Three Jewels of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.' Would that satisfy both KAV and Viriditas? Best wishes. Suddha (talk) 05:49, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Again, Viritidas you need to pay more attention to what is being said. I am not arguing that the three jewlels are not the foundation of the practice. I am arguing that taking refuge in them is not the foundation. Taking refuge has a specific meaning. So again, this is down to accurately defining the terms 'taking refuge', and also the terms 'Buddhist practice'.

Buddhist practice encompasses all those practices that originate from the Buddhist tradition. One need not be on the Buddhist path to do a Buddhist practice.

Taking refuge means specifically that one is now on the Buddhist path. The primary sources are clear about this - After taking refuge one either declares oneself a lay follower of the Buddha, or one asks to be accepted as a monk. The secondary sources you have included also demonstrate this as they all say that taking refuge separates a 'buddhist' from a 'non-buddhist'.

A wording to reflect this could more accurately therefore say that -

The three jewels of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha have been the central pillars of the Buddhist tradition, and having confidence in them is the foundation of all Buddhist practice. 'Taking refuge' in the three jewels has traditionally been a declaration and committment to being on the Buddhist path and akin to considering oneself a 'Buddhist'. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 11:44, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the patient explanation. I think this is where we are talking past each other. You are saying "taking refuge" has a specific meaning, and you are taking it to refer to a formal ceremony, which it certainly does, but it also refers to individuals taking refuge at any time, not just as a formality, but as a part of their practice, such as before or during meditation. We can see this is true in the sources. Just look around. So, for example, Chögyam Trungpa says taking refuge in the Three Jewels includes our attitude of respect towards them. When Buddhists respect the image of the Buddha, boooks containing the teachings, and priests and teachers, that is an expression of taking refuge in the Three Jewels.[27] "Taking refuge" is much more than a formal ceremony. However, with respect to your view, Prebish (2002) adds some indirect support for what you are saying.[28] Please read that page and see if it reflects your own thoughts on this subject. (also search for "refuge" within that book as it also indirectly supports your argument about Buddhists who don't take the formal refuge). I do not think pointing out this finer nuance in the lead section is significant or important. We are writing a broad encyclopedia article, but I suggest you take a closer look at that source as it may help you develop new content to add to the article to support your argument. By using sources like Prebish to support your argument, you may be able to argue more effectively. Viriditas (talk) 09:44, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

In Theravada at least, religious ceremonies regularly begin with taking refuge, so people do it any number of times. I don't know how far back in history that practice goes, but even in the Pali Canon (Majjhimanikaya, I think the Bodhirajakumarasutta) we have the story of someone who "took" the refuges 3 times:

through his mother acting on his behalf during pregnancy
through his nurse acting on his behalf in his infancy
in his own person in adulthood

Peter jackson (talk) 11:11, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The act of taking refuge certainly denotes a ritual in most Buddhist countries as well as an affirmation of being a 'buddhist'. The primary and secondary sources are clear that if one takes refuge, one is considered a 'buddhist'. As I have stated, doing a buddhist practice such as vipassana does not make one a buddhist. Your argument would gain more suppport if you could find a reliable source that stated that all people who pratice vipassana are buddhists, and that they have taken refuge, since you have introduced the claim into the lead that 'taking refuge is the foundation of Buddhist practice'. However this claim is simply not supported, as all the sources thus presented support only the view that taking refuge is an affirmation of being on the Buddhist path, an affirmation that can be made more than once.

Examine the meaning of the term 'to take refuge'. Refuge = shelter, asylum. One seeks refuge in the triple gem from the perils and sufferings of samsara. In order to take refuge in triple gem, one must have already accepted the teachings to a certain level based on both examining the meaning and faith. Taking refuge only has meaning from within the Buddhist framework of samsara. It is far more than just confidence or an attidude of respect to the Buddha. Citing references by monks is not always a particularly reliable source, especially since there are so many contrasting opinions. Certainly respect is a prerequistie to taking refuge and is part of it, but truly taking refuge denotes accepting the triple gem as being a 'shelter' from samsara and being on the Buddhist path. The sources are quite clear about this, as is the use of the word refuge to describe this. So, whilst it may be accurately stated that the triple gem is the foundation of all Buddhist practice since practices such as vipassana originate from it, taking refuge in the triple gem is an affirmation of being on the buddhist path and accepting the Buddhist framework of samsara, karma and rebirth as a whole. Taking refuge is not however a prerequisite to doing a Buddhist practice in itself and there has been no evidence thus far to support this claim. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 17:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Could you be so kind as to offer up some sources for me to look at that support your position? Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 23:25, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Could you provide sources that support your position? I would be grateful to see some. The onus is on you to provide relevant sources, since you have introduced the new claim that taking refuge in the triple gem is the foundation of buddhist practice, a claim thus far utterly unsupported by any of the primary or secondary sources that have been provided. Clearly, taking refuge in the sense we are discussing, is more than just reciting the ritualistic 'refuge formula'. It centres on your misunderstanding of what taking refuge means. Yet another reference that may help you to understand the distinction is here. [29]. It also makes the important point that refuge in the sangha does not mean the community of monks and nuns. It means the noble sangha of those who have attained to any of the four stages of enlightenment. Since this discussion is really not progressing, I will give you some options to source your claim.

1/. Find a suitable reference that supports the claim that vipassana (a buddhist practice) is done only by buddhists (those that have taken refuge and accepted the Buddha's path as salvation).

2/. Find a suitable reference that vipassana is not a buddhist practice (ridiculous, but your arguement depends on one of these two claims)

3/. Reword the section to remove the claim that taking refuge is the foundation of Buddhist practice. Instead, as all the sources are clear about, taking refuge is the acknowledgement and foundation of 'being a buddhist'.

If you are unable to provide sources for any of the above, then I will reword the section along the lines of taking refuge as commitment to being on the Buddhist path and being a buddhist, cited with some of the many references that have been provided to support this. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 09:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

You're free to ignore what I say if you wish, but please don't talk past me. "Your argument" in the 1st paragraph after my signature is clearly addressed to Viriditas. Peter jackson (talk) 10:55, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

My posts have been entirely directed to Viriditas, since we have been the only ones participating in this discussion save for the small paragraph you have inserted about taking refuge being a part of formal ceremonies and something that is done more than once. If you would like to elaborate on where that puts you in terms of this debate, then my all means do so. My position is clear enough however and unless I see the evidence in support of the counter argument, I see no reason not to edit the lead to reflect a more accurate description of what taking refuge signifies. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 11:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is some more direct evidence that will end this argument- an article with some quotes from S.N. Goenka [30] in which it is clearly stated by him:

While Vipassana is firmly rooted in the true teachings of the Buddha, Mr. Goenka emphasizes that it is not a religion and involves no dogma, rites, rituals, and no conversion. "The only conversion involved in Vipassana is from misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation," he told an applauding audience at the World Peace Summit at the United Nations, New York, in 2000.

"Thousands of Catholic priests, Buddhist monks and nuns, Jain ascetics, Hindu sanyasis come to Vipassana courses along with other religious leaders".

As all of the sources have been clear, taking refuge in the triple gem separates a Buddhist from a non-buddhist. This is entirely different from having some degree of confidence in the Buddha and his teachings, enough to do a buddhist practice such as vipassana, yet maintain whatever religious affiliation one wants.

We can discuss how to alter the lead to accomodate this understanding, my suggestion would be as follows:

The Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, collectively known as the three jewels, are the central pillars of the Buddhist tradition. Having some measure of confidence in them is the foundation of all Buddhist practice. 'Taking refuge' in the three jewels has traditionally been a declaration and committment to being on the Buddhist path and akin to considering oneself a 'Buddhist'.

Please offer any alternate suggestions as to how this may be worded. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 11:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Please offer sources supporting your wording, first. Viriditas (talk) 04:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Since the wording that 'taking refuge in the triple gem is the foundation of buddhist practice' is unsupported and disproven by the above sources, I am proceeding with the alternate wording as suggested. I am including references in support of it as provided here. There is plenty of support already for the alternate wording as provided above so I take it since there are no alternate suggestions the wording is fine. Viridatus, you are acting much like a petulant child I see no basis for what you are saying and I suggest we leave it to others to decide which wording is more suitable since you seem unwilling to accept that your position is untenable despite the clear fact of it. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 10:49, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

As you ask for other opinions, I'll restate mine. I disagree with both of you. Any attempt to describe Buddhism as a whole is disputed (citations at #More on common core). While this doesn't preclude some general statements, they'd have to be contextualized. Peter jackson (talk) 10:06, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

KowledgeAndVision, the wording, as I see it, was not disproven by your "sources", but I agree that there is always room for improvement. For the last time, if you can offer an alternative wording with good sources, I don't think anyone would possibly disagree with you. But so far, you keep interpreting primary sources, which we can't do, and relying on interpretations of secondary sources, which we can't do. Please cite the sources verbatim, in the context of this dispute. That's all. Viriditas (talk) 08:35, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Secondary & tertiary sources

Peter, Wikipedia is a tertiary source. General articles on "Buddhism" in tertiary sources, are by their very nature, expected to describe Buddhism as a whole. This is not controversial. Viriditas (talk) 08:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

"General articles on "Buddhism" in tertiary sources, are by their very nature, expected to describe Buddhism as a whole." That's an a priori assumption, which doesn't fit the facts. If you look at User:Peter jackson/Encyclopaedias, you'll see that some in fact spend little or no space trying to describe Buddhism as a whole, and most or all surveying the different forms, e.g. the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Religion. Peter jackson (talk) 10:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Peter, Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Tertiary sources are composed of a wide variety of primary and secondary sources which describe the subject in broad terms and address narrow aspects of the topic when necessary. I really, really do not want to return to your previous arguments on this subject; We've been there, and we've done that. So, if you have a new, fresh, or different take on this discussion, please present it. Viriditas (talk) 11:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

"Our policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from secondary sources. Articles may include analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims if they have been published by a reliable secondary source." (WP:PSTS

As you so frequently do, you're ignoring what I said. I gave you an example, & referred you to others, which clearly don't fit your description of what tertiary sources do.

The more general point is this. Any presentation of Buddhism as being all about X, whether X is one thing or a group, or any presentation that's liable to give readers that impression, doesn't represent a consensus of scholarly opinion. If it did, why wouldn't the scholars say that? Why wouldn't they present Buddhism that way? Most of them don't. Peter jackson (talk) 18:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Peter, please AGF and stop telling me I'm ignoring you, or that I'm doing so frequently. I've repeatedly addressed your examples and I've found them to be lacking. In some intsances, you haven't even tried defending them; You've basically said, "They exist, not my problem", but not in those words. The only problem, Peter, is that we don't write articles with bad sources, or sources that are cherry picked to prove a point. Please provide me with a good secondary source that makes your point. "Good", in this context means, 1) An author who is considered authoritative, credible and neutral 2) A publication that is considered authoritative, credible, neutral, and has undergone either a peer-review process or has some kind of editorial oversight, and 3) The article is current, timely, and up to date. Can you do that, Peter? Please don't point me to another tertiary source from 1968. Viriditas (talk) 02:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you're referring to by 1968. The only reference I specifically mentioned in this subsubsection is 1987.

I have cited numerous sources satisfying the RS criteria, which you summarize above. You yourself have cited virtually none in our discussions (you did produce some in discussion with KV).

It is blatantly obvious we're never going to agree. That's why I've curtailed these lengthy arguments. You might like to do the same, but that's up to you of course. I believe in freedom of speech. What I'm posting here is for the record, in case anyone else is listening. The only indication of that so far is one comment by Nat, but you never know how many silent listeners there might be. Peter jackson (talk) 10:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, yes, yes, the lurkers agree with you. Meanwhile, looking up a bit, we see that User:Suddha has weighed in. Did you read his comment, Peter? Listen Peter, all I ask is that you stop assuming bad faith. I do not think it is "blatantly obvious we're never going to agree" nor would I have ever made such a bizarre statement of bad faith. You appear to be the one who can't agree. I fully agree that you need to provide good secondary sources for what you are saying. Encyclopædia Britannica has pages of secondary sources listed in their entry for "Buddhism". Have you had a chance to look at them? In response, you keep pointing me to a user page with tertiary sources. Do you see the problem, Peter? Secondary, not tertiary. You say that I have cited virtually no sources in our discussion. Could you tell me Peter, what I am supposed to be citing sources for here? For what you are saying? Sure, Peter, I'll do that. Tell me what you are saying. But, let's be absolutely clear. I'm only here for one reason: to help improve this article. Currently, the article is a mess, and has problems with formatting and sourcing. I would like to see it improved. Is there a reason that editors are using this talk page to argue about nuanced interpretations rather than focusing on the hard work that needs to be done? Viriditas (talk) 11:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The reason I referred to tertiary sources in this case is that that was what you were talking about. There's plenty of secondary source material in my user space as well. However, as I pointed out above, statements about Buddhism as a whole are tertiary, in the sense that the person making them cannot have direct knowledge of the whole field & must therefore be relying on other scholars for parts of what they say. Peter jackson (talk) 12:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Right, and as I previously explained, Wikipedia uses the term secondary differently than you are using it. That's not a problem, and your way of using it is perfectly accurate. It's just that when we are talking about sourcing for Wikipedia, we need to use Wikipedia's definition. Viriditas (talk) 12:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I quoted the whole thing further up somewhere. It's not obvious to me that it doesn't mean what I just said. Peter jackson (talk) 15:33, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

You are referring to statements about Buddhism as tertiary, but Wikipedia is concerned with classifying sources as a whole in this regard. So, for example, an encyclopedia is generally considered a tertiary source because it uses primary and secondary sources. You may be interested in reviewing WP:PSTS and Wikipedia:Evaluating sources for more information. We are not concerned with classifying statements about Buddhism. More importantly, note how we use tertiary sources: "Tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources." I don't believe that is how you are using them. Viriditas (talk) 01:08, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

"Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks may also be considered tertiary sources, to the extent that they sum up multiple secondary sources." (WP:PSTS)

Note the phrase "to the extent that". This suggests to me that a source can be considered partially tertiary.

Note also the phrase you quoted: "broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources". Buddhism is just such a topic.

There's a general common-sense principle here. The further removed a source is from first-hand scholarship, the less reliable it is. That has to be set against the necessity for broad coverage in certain cases. Tertiary sources, in whichever sense, should be checked against secondary sources as far as possible. Peter jackson (talk) 10:41, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we're in agreement...for the second time. Third time is a charm... :) Viriditas (talk) 10:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

What is Buddhism?

I will like to know what is buddhiim? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.125.145.2 (talk) 00:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Buddhism is like a mirror. Viriditas (talk) 08:38, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Jorge Luis Borges says any great work of art is like a mirror. Peter jackson (talk) 18:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no such thing as 'Buddhism'. There is the only the Dhamma. Next question- what is the Dhamma? Dhamma has many meanings. 'Phenomena', 'reality', 'universal law', 'truth', 'teachings of an awakened mind'. Probably best to stick to two definitions: the first being how the Buddha himself defined and summarised his teachings, and the second a passage that is said throughout the earliest sources to be the 'vision of the dhamma'.

I teach only suffering, and the cessation of suffering

All that is subject to arising is subject to ceasing

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 16:20, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Having just written the above definition, it strikes me as perhaps worth including these core teachings in the lead somehow. They are both core principles that define what the Dhamma, or 'Buddhism' is, and they are both only a short sentence each. Certainly for someone coming to the Buddhism page, there would be no better summary or definition of the teachings than these which are universally accepted by all traditions. Of course the lead also talks of 'Buddhism' as a tradition of religion and philosophy, but I think including the above statements would certainly not go amiss, and would illuminate anyone who read the lead as to what the fundamental teachings are and cut through what can seem like a confusing landscape of teachings to begin with. Before PJ states the obvious, yes the lead covers all aspects of what 'Buddhism' means, which is 'Buddhism' as the teachings, 'Buddhism' as the religious/philosophical traditions and the practices, and 'Buddhism' as the western conceptualisation of these traditions and practices. The statments would be to clarify in simplest terms the 'teachings' aspect in the lead. Any thoughts on including the above two statements into the lead?

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 16:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what distinction you intend between

"the teachings" &
"the religious/philosophical traditions and the practices".

Do you perhaps intend these to mean respectively

What historians think the Buddha taught &
What Buddhists think the Buddha taught?

If so, I'd say again that this article is supposed to be mainly about 2, because that's the main thing people looking up this article would be looking for.

On the general ideas of what you're saying above see the citations in #More on common core.

On the specifics, it's no good quoting particular passages from scriptures. You can find similar statements about lots of different things just in the Pali Canon, & far more in the Mahayana scriptures.

Please note also that "universally accepted by all traditions" is not the same thing as "core". As an analogy, it's "universally accepted" that Oslo is the capital of Norway, but that doesn't make it important, let alone "core" to anything.

"There is no such thing as 'Buddhism'. There is the only the Dhamma." Sounds impressive, but what does it actually mean? Peter jackson (talk) 09:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

"and the second a passage that is said throughout the earliest sources to be the 'vision of the dhamma'.

...

All that is subject to arising is subject to ceasing"

Now here's an interesting point I only came across recently, in Journal of the Pali Text Society, volume XXX. This latter phrase appears only in the Pali versions of the early texts, not in the Chinese versions. So it can't be asserted to be in "the earliest sources", but may well be a later, Theravada explanation of them. Peter jackson (talk) 10:27, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

That is indeed extremely interesting PJ, I had assumed that the phrase "all that is subject to arising is subject to ceasing" was found in all the early canons. It is first attributed to Anna Kondanna in the very first discourse where it is stated he gains the "dustless vision of the dhamma" after hearing the Buddha speak. Certainly I would assume the statement all formations are subject to disintegration, also attributed to the Buddha as part of his last words and found many times in the Canon, would be equivalent to the above passage and that this is found in the Chinese versions as well.

The distinctions I am making are between what scholars and/or dhamma practitioners think the Buddha actually taught, and also the various traditions and practices that have arisen that comprise 'Buddhism' as a religion such as going to temples and venerating Buddha statues , none of which has anything to do with what we can ascertain to have been the teachings.

There is no such thing as Buddhism. This is my point about the Western conceptualisation of whatever it is the Buddha taught, which includes giving it the name 'Buddhism', and trying to understand it and fit it into a western notion of what constitutes 'religion'. That is part of the reason that it is only ever referred to as the Dhamma, and the term Dhamma is not given any precise defintion but has a number of meanings. The meaning can only really be known through the practice, although similies the Buddha gave such as the Dhamma is like a raft give us an understanding of what is the intention.

The Raft Simile [31]

"I have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto. Understanding the Dhamma as taught compared to a raft, you should let go even of Dhammas, to say nothing of non-Dhammas."

Once the 'flood' of Samsara has been crossed through skillful use of the Dhamma, only then can the Dhamma be abandoned. If even skillful action of body, speech and mind is to be abandoned when there is no further need for action, there is no question as to the abandoning of non-skillful action in the here and now.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 12:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't find your explanations clarifying what you're saying.

Let me try to go into a bit of detail about the question of what the Buddha taught. First of all, what historians think. There's no consensus among them. See Talk:View (Buddhism) for citations from 12 different scholars to that effect. The nearest I can find to it is the following.

"As for his specific teachings, scholars have always debated about what the Buddha actually taught, since even the earliest texts that record his teachings were written down hundreds of years after his death. However, scholars usually agree that there are certain basic teachings, which, since they are presented in so many places throughout the early texts, must represent at least the kinds of things the Buddha actually taught." (Mitchell, Buddhism, 1st edn, Oxford University Press, 2002, page 34)

Note the qualifications: "usually"; "the kinds of things ".

Now to what Buddhists think. The following are regarded as "the Word of the Buddha" by major Buddhist groups:

Vinaya Pitaka
Sutta Pitaka
Abhidhamma Pitaka
Mahayana sutras (including "lower" tantras)
"higher" tantras

I'm oversimplifying, of course.

The traditional positions of the main Buddhist traditions, still widely held, are roughly these:

Theravada
1. regards 1-3 as the Word of the Buddha
2. 4 & 5 as inauthentic
East Asian Buddhism
1. regards 1, 2 & 4 as the Word of the Buddha
2. regards 3 as valid teaching, up to a point, but not the Word of the Buddha
3. regards 5 as inauthentic
4. regards 2 as only a preliminary teaching for certain sorts of teaching, & in practice pretty well ignores them, regarding 4 as the main teaching
5. in Japan, ignores 1 too
Tibetan Buddhism
1. regards 1, 2, 4 & 5 as the Word of the Buddha
2. has the same attitude to 3 as East Asian Buddhism
3. in practice, never even bothered to translate most of 2 into Tibetan
4. regards 5 as the ultimate teaching

Now it would seem reasonable enough to cover all this in a subsection of the History section of the article, but I doubt you could produce a reasonably useful & neutral summary brief enough to fit sensibly in the lead.

"The distinctions I am making are between what scholars and/or dhamma practitioners think the Buddha actually taught, and also the various traditions and practices that have arisen that comprise 'Buddhism' as a religion such as going to temples and venerating Buddha statues , none of which has anything to do with what we can ascertain to have been the teachings."

As you can see from the above, there are a lot of differences among both scholars & practitioners on what the Buddha taught. Also, what do you mean by "dhamma practitioners"? Is it the same thing as Buddhists? If not, what does it mean? Does it perhaps mean those people who conform to your idea of what the Buddha taught?

"going to temples and venerating Buddha statues"

Well, there's nothing in the Pali Canon about Buddha statues, though there might well be in the Mahayana sutras. there's certainly a fair amount in the Pali Canon about shrines. Also note that Pure Land is based on Mahayana sutras.

"There is no such thing as Buddhism. This is my point about the Western conceptualisation of whatever it is the Buddha taught, which includes giving it the name 'Buddhism', and trying to understand it and fit it into a western notion of what constitutes 'religion'. That is part of the reason that it is only ever referred to as the Dhamma, and the term Dhamma is not given any precise defintion but has a number of meanings. The meaning can only really be known through the practice, although similies the Buddha gave such as the Dhamma is like a raft give us an understanding of what is the intention."

I think all specialist scholars have long since got beyond confusing what the Buddha actually taught with what Buddhists actually believe & practise.

Running out of time now. Peter jackson (talk) 10:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Scholars have not totally gone beyond confusing what the Buddha taught to what many different 'Buddhists' believe he taught, since they have still to go beyond confusing what they variously believe he taught, with what he actually taught. And how do we know what he actually taught? Firstly, we abandon using terms like Buddhism and Buddhist, as this is part of the misconceptualisation that most western scholars make in trying to frame the teachings as they understand religions like Christianity. Since there is as you have mentioned no scholarly consensus, we must piece together that scholarship that we find most reasonable alongside our own, personal interpretation of what we can ascertain to have been the 'original teachings', that is early material that is common to early traditions.

Secondly, we can be certain due to historical development and commonality of sources, that the Buddha did not teach Mahayana sutras, 'Tantric Buddhism', or the Abhidhamma. Most scholars and sensible dhamma practitioners would not dispute this. So my own criteria for investigation starts with trying to determine 'what the Buddha taught', and taking this as the valid reference point.

Most early canons refer to the Dhamma-Vinaya, and of these early canons, what is the common material that is found between them? This is as close as we will ever come to having an idea of what is likely to have been the Buddha's teachings.

I have not come across mention of shrines in th Pali canon, at least not dedicated to the Buddha or Sangha. All such monuments were latter development and actively discouraged during the Buddha's time.

There is also another route, generally overlooked by all scholars and the majority of 'Buddhists'. This is direct lineage of transmission. Now of course, this is much more open to corruption and falsification, but the ancient Indian model of teaching was from teacher to student by way of verbal instruction. This is why for example, the Pali Canon has such a bare-bones description of meditation. The details were something that one would get directly from a teacher within the Sangha, as befitting ones level of meditation development. Reconstructing this hypthetical unbroken lineage of teachers, if such a thing existed or survived up until now would actually be the closest we could come to 'what the Buddha taught', not what is found in books no matter how old. Now I have no doubt that many would claim to be part of this 'unbroken lineage', such as Tibetan teachers etc, but we can also be certain that 99% of them are not. The combination of the early material with this lineage which presuambly would be found within some parts of some branches of what is now called 'Theravada' (some argue the meditation lineage died out in Sri Lanka but was preserved in Burma, some argue it is in Sri Lanka, some argue it hardly made it to Sri Lanka and survived in India) would be what we can know as 'The Buddha's teaching'.

Since however we are not privy to this lineage and there is such a host of different teachers claiming to be part of it, we in general must rely on the written material as much as we can piece it together and validate it as 'likely taeching of the Buddha'. For my views on 'dhamma practitioner' see the page I created about it here as a prefferable term that was a self designation for some who might be called 'Buddhists' by western scholars, and also has canonical support. [32]

What you say is almost entirely contrary to Wikipedia policy. The policy is for this article to present the opinions of scholars, not the editors of the article.

"Since there is as you have mentioned no scholarly consensus, we must piece together that scholarship that we find most reasonable alongside our own, personal interpretation of what we can ascertain to have been the 'original teachings', that is early material that is common to early traditions." Original research. See WP:OR.

":Secondly, we can be certain due to historical development and commonality of sources, that the Buddha did not teach Mahayana sutras, 'Tantric Buddhism', or the Abhidhamma. Most scholars and sensible dhamma practitioners would not dispute this." Agreed, but see below.

"So my own criteria for investigation starts with trying to determine 'what the Buddha taught', and taking this as the valid reference point." Original research.

":Most early canons refer to the Dhamma-Vinaya, and of these early canons, what is the common material that is found between them? This is as close as we will ever come to having an idea of what is likely to have been the Buddha's teachings." This is what's in dispute among scholars. Most think the Buddha taught something of the sort, but some disagree. But something of the sort is a bit vague. You can't draw too much in the way of detailed conclusions from it.

":I have not come across mention of shrines in th Pali canon, at least not dedicated to the Buddha or Sangha. All such monuments were latter development and actively discouraged during the Buddha's time." See Mahaparinibbanasutta. Peter jackson (talk) 09:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

As someone pointed out there, your article is mainly original research. It also violates NPOV, as almost certainly does the use of the term generally. Basically, it's implicitly or explicitly saying that some people who claim to be following the Buddha's teachings aren't doing so. NPOV requires not taking sides in such disputes. Peter jackson (talk) 10:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Qualification to my agreement above. While no scholar would suggest the Buddha taught the Abhidhamma Pitaka, some suggest he may have taught the abhidhamma methodology later elaborated into it. Peter jackson (talk) 10:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually the most recent research by Noa Ronkin shows that the Abhidhamma is, upon close examination, incompatible with the teachings of the early texts. Mitsube (talk) 05:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't show it, it merely argues it. You can only say it shows it if you can show that the conclusions have been generally accepted by scholars in the field. Peter jackson (talk) 11:30, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Truth is not established by demonstrating consensus, on wikipedia or elsewhere. Mitsube (talk) 19:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" Peter jackson (talk) 10:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, what I stated is verifiable. Mitsube (talk) 02:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I should have added, for anyone who doesn't know, that that's from the policy WP:V. There's a very good & simple reason for this policy. Experts aren't infallible, but statements they make, checked by fellow experts in peer review, are far more likely to be right than the personal opinions of Wikipedia editors. Peter jackson (talk) 12:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, scandal Climategate show us, that even peer-reviewed data could be manipulated, if there are enough well-paid-interests and that sometimes peer-rejected data are the correct one.. Thats why Wiki should be taken only as a sum of knowledge, which is "valid with some higher probability" which is related to amount of editors.. (For example, Czech Wiki have only few stable editors and is quite crappy due to censorship based on "Wiki-editors-consensus" on what is "inapropriate in czech cultural frame"...) Falkon Nightsdale ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.228.235.12 (talk) 13:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't contradict what I said. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The bottom line in terms of Wikipedia policy is this. Although it's resonable that the article should include an account of what scholars say about the original teachings, it must not give the impression of arguing that some Buddhists are right & others wrong. Peter jackson (talk) 10:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No, if scholars say that some Buddhists are wrong about certain interpretations, that is verifiable. There is nothing barring it. Mitsube (talk) 02:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I didn't express that clearly. I was referring to WP:SYN:

"*A simple example of original synthesis:

The UN's stated objective is to maintain international peace and security, but since its creation there have been 160 wars throughout the world.

Although no conclusion is drawn and both facts are true, the sentence implies that the UN has failed to maintain world peace. If no reliable source has combined the material in this way, it constitutes original research. It would be easy to imply the opposite using the same material, illustrating how, when no source is provided, facts can easily be manipulated:

The UN's stated objective is to maintain international peace and security, and since its creation there have been only 160 wars throughout the world."

Yes, it's perfectly OK to report that scholars say some Buddhists are wrong, but it's against policy to give the impression of arguing for a conclusion unless the scholars actually do so themselves.

Likewise, selective citation of scholars who agree with one's own point of view while ignoring those who disagree is obviously against policy.

On the question we were actually discussing, namely the authenticity of scriptures, the fact is that very few scholars are prepared to maintain even that the content of most of the overlap between the nikayas & agamas goes back to the Buddha. This is not surprising. After all, we know that, from the time of the schisms onwards, whenever that was, Indian Buddhists kept on composing new scriptures. Isn't it reasonable to suppose that they'd been doing so all along?

On the other hand, many scholars agree that the substance of the teachings in those texts does go back to the Buddha. Quite a number hold either that the basic ideas of abhidharma methodology may go back to the Buddha, or that abhidharma is just a systematization of the early teachings anyway, or otherwise that they're compatible. Cousins, Cox, Gethin, Harvey, Kalupahana & Warder come to mind. As to claims by some modern Mahayanists that their scriptures simply express the essence/spirit of the teachings in new forms, I don't know that you'll find many scholars expressing opinions one way or the other. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The most recent research is quite against the idea that the Abhidhamma methodology goes back to the Buddha. That is verifiable, though I have not added it. Also not all the early sects even had an Abhidharma. WP:SYN is not relevant here, I am only talking about scholars' conclusions. Mitsube (talk) 19:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how you could verify that "The most recent research ..." All you could do is cite some particular recent research. How could you verify that there's no other recent research disagreeing with it, let alone that there's a consensus among specialist scholars accepting its conclusions?

I'm not sure there's consensus that "not all the early sects even had an Abhidharma". Certainly there are sources claiming the Mahasanghikas had one (starting with Faxian, who claims to have obtained a copy of it, assuming the text & translation are right). Peter jackson (talk) 10:41, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean the Mahasanghikas? Which subsect? The extant Abhidharmas have little in common. It would be interesting if some scholar were to construct a proto-Sthaviravadin Abhidharma using the two extant ones. Mitsube (talk) 22:35, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

How different were the different Mahasanghika subsects? How significant were they in terms of numbers? Neither Xuanzang nor Yizing (is that the right spelling?) bothers with such subdivisions.

They have little content in common, but share methodology.

Warder did a fairly detailed, though by his own admission pretty speculative, analysis of the evolution of abhidharma. You can see some extracts on my Sources subpage. Peter jackson (talk) 11:11, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

[33] I don't know which ones had an Abhidharma, obviously. The Sarvastivada Abhidharma has an ontological approach while the Theravada one does not. That is quite a big difference. Mitsube (talk) 22:10, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if what I'm about to say will be be helpful, but I think it is worth considering. The above discussion is a pretty good example of what happens when adults think about things that children learn by observation. Buddhism isn't about the teachings of Buddha any more than Christianity is about the teachings of Christ; what these people actually taught is secondary to what people believe and practice, and historicity discussions are a bit of a psych-out (like thinking you don't know what a car is because you don't have the design blueprints for the Model-T). just a grain of salt. --Ludwigs2 22:57, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

That's something I've said repeatedly myself. I think you can find it on this page without even having to go into the archives. Admittedly the present discussion is at best of marginal relevance to this article, though it may be of more to others.

"The Sarvastivada Abhidharma has an ontological approach while the Theravada one does not." Are you sure about that? You see, Western scholarship has often had a rather peculiar methodology, based on the study of "origins". The effective use of this term has often been somewhat strange. Scholars have tended to study the Theravada abhidhamma in terms of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, often misunderstanding things as a result of failing to study the traditional explanations. On the other hand, the Sarvastivada Abhidharma has tended to be studied through the Abhidharmakosa, because the Sarvastivada Abhidharma Pitaka doesn't survive in the original language. So scholars conclusions about the differences between the 2 schools may really be differences between 2 phases in the evolution of abhidharma. Peter jackson (talk) 11:04, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

This is news to me. Theravadin Abhidhamma is usually studied with the commentaries as a reference, in what I have read. According to Nakamura's theory, Ashoka exiled the Sarvastivadins to Kashmir because of their heterodoxy. Kalupahana calls their theories heresy. The Abhidharma article has references stressing the differences between the Abhidharmas. Mitsube (talk) 00:29, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

That article has an extremely biased selection of citations. I'll see what I can find you. Peter jackson (talk) 10:50, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

You might like to read Gethin's review of Ronkin in Buddhist Studies Review, 22.2, 175-94

page 179: "... she suggests that Paul Williams may be overconfident in his claim that the Sarvāstivādins and the Theravādins straightforwardly agree that 'it is the presence or absence of the svabhāva that renders the entity a primary existent'. " citation of Williams from Journal of indian Philosophy, 9 (1981), page 242

page 194: "Perhaps it is the case that the ancient Ābhidhammika mapmakers eventually lost their way in an obsession with mapping the parts of the mind in every detail, and mistook thir map for reality itself."

Note "Perhaps". Not settled fact. Peter jackson (talk) 12:13, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Life of the B

I hope I'll be forgiven for somewhat simplifying and clarifying the life of the B. With very extensive entries elsewhere, with much scholarship etc, it seems to me that what's needed here is the bare bones of the standard biog in the fewest number of words. Now I think it brings out the point of the story, which is good for an encyclopedia, where people (maybe including young people) are coming on these things for the first time. Some things are gone - eg his marriage etc - but IMO they are really meaningless in the context of setting up an article on Buddhism.Bluehotel (talk) 21:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think the marriage is important. Remember the Buddha's life story is the path to enlightenment. The 1st sermon talks of the middle way between sense enjoyment & asceticism. This is in the context of the story of the Buddha's prior experience of both in succession. the ideas are connected & parallel. Peter jackson (talk) 09:16, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'll probably move on from this, as I think I shouldn't give it the time. However, his marriage is as good a topic as any for me to give my two cents. I think there's potentially great merit, from all kinds of viewpoints, in producing a really top-class answer to the question: "What is Buddhism?" It's a possibly overlooked feature of this page that it may be the most-easily accessed text on this question in human history. But I don't feel that a 14-year-old in Pune doing a school project, or a semi-suicidal jobseeker in Detroit, will get it. Any of it.

IMO, apply the surgeon's motto: "If in doubt, cut it out". Simplify. Answer questions people are asking: "What does a Buddhist believe, or do?" Raise the issues that explain the big questions: "One Buddha, or many?" "Humble teacher, or cosmic superhero?" Use the technology - the hyperlinks - to kill most of the detail and a lot of the lists. Kill the Eightfold Path, for instance, but instead say what it is, and give them the link to click on for expanded coverage. Nobody gives a shit about the lists. I shouldn't think they ever raised one new Buddhist in the last 2,000 kalpas.

Move on. Always. Give only the broad sweep here, and in the fewest words. Aim to get that kid and that jobseeker ALL THE WAY to the end. As a page of text, it ought to be a very simple story. If it's not, it's nothing much to anyone. Bluehotel (talk) 14:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the general idea of what you say. The problem is that Buddhism, in the encyclopaedic sense, just isn't simple. What I mean by that is this. As an encyclopaedia, Wikipedia is supposed to cover, in your terms, "What does a Buddhist believe, or do?" Unfortunately, the basic answer is "depends which Buddhist". The beliefs & practices of the 350,000,000 people calling themselves Buddhists are extremely varied. Wikipedia's policy is not to take sides, not to say some Buddhists have got it wrong. So in policy terms, the article is supposed to give fair coverage to at least the 5 or 6 major types of Buddhism.

But that's just policy. In practice, as there's no procedure for enforcing that policy, the article is liable to end up giving fair coverage to the personal opinions of the editors working on it, and so to the various modern/Western(ized) Buddhist groups they mainly belong to. So, in the unlikely event you felt like reading through all the archives of this page, you'd find every so often someone turns up & vehemently insists Buddhism is NOT a religion (their capitals very often). And every so often someone turns up & vehemently insists Buddhism IS a religion. It might be quite amusing if they turned up simultaneously. What you end up with is an article giving verybody's views, which is quite unwieldy.

There seems to be no way thsi can be dealt with without a radical change in Wikipedia's system or culture:

either somebody authorized to impose sense on participants
or else whenever anyone asks for it a large posse of neutral people turn up & knock heads together

Do you see any likelihood of either of these in the foreseeable future? Peter jackson (talk) 15:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, the be honest, if anybody had the time, the most sensible thing, IMO,would be to generate a tree of all the main Buddhism pages, list and map the links between them, and build the "Buddhism" page as if it were the index page of a website. Then that page could be a narrative that essentially summarised the materal.

I also don't think it's possible to tell the story without essentially putting it into a crude chronological order. The Theravada and it's Buddha goes first, with the four truths, the Brahma vihara (which I didn't see on the page), etc; how this was all pre-literate; Pali Canon (es[ppecially the Dhamappada) and so forth; including something on the history of the period, the social circumstances. And then the Mahayana story. Many Buddhas, gods, celestial boddhisattvas etc.

If it's set out as a history, then I think it works better than as a static listing of dogmas.

At the end of the day, the Theravada Buddha and his simplicity, in my understanding, doesn't disappear from anybody's pantheon. All the rest are add-ons, whether of a "greater vehicle" or not.

Maybe it's like telling the story of a city.Bluehotel (talk) 23:15, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

That is in fact the way most scholars present the subject.

Theoretically you're right in saying the early stuff never disappears. Nevertheless, it sometimes is so overshadowed it might as well not be there. Peter jackson (talk) 14:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Introduction and purpose of this page

I have reverted edits to the intro secton for the following reasons. This is an encyclopedia, and we need to be respectful to people who wish to find out about Buddhism. It's not really a place to grandstand what we know, or try to force into every narrative our personal viewpoints. It needs to be readable. This is the foundation of consideration to visitors who have come here to find answers to their questions.

To start listing obscure modern scets in the second paragraph of a single article on Buddhism not only holds the reader back from getting the broad sweep of the subject, but it also fails to use hyperlinks for their purpose of allowing people to click to something they want to know more about, and invites retainers for every last one of probably tens of thousands of Buddhist organisations from the last 2,500 years to want that in the second paragraph.

Please, be kind to readers. Let them get on with the story. If you really want to namecheck Eskimo Buddhism, or the NKT, please put it further down, as they don't quite rate alongside the Theravada and the Mahayana.Bluehotel (talk) 18:07, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be a mixture. Some of those are really obscure. Others are comparatively major. Soka Gakkai, which Wikipedia rightly or wrongly calls NDB, has around 15 million followers. The Vipassana movement probably has even more, but claims to be simply Theravada. Peter jackson (talk) 10:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

So-called "Eskimo Buddhism" now being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eskimo Buddhism Bluehotel (talk) 21:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Precepts 6-8 are not morality

Precepts 6-8 are listed under the "Buddhist ethics", but they are not about ethics or morality, they're about ascetism, I guess to improve meditation. As somebody looking into Buddhism, it rather unpleasantly shocked me when, on first reading, that it looked like Buddhism considered music and dancing immoral. Nothing wrong with a religion unpleasantly shocking me with considering music and dancing immoral, of course. But Buddhism doesn't. Also, this page states that the first 5 precepts are common to all Buddhism, but it looks like 6-8 are not, and that should be more clearly stated. Or, more likely, precepts 6-8 should just be removed from this page. They're covered in the main article this section links to. If I don't get feedback soon I'm likely to remove these three. Darxus (talk) 02:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Good points. Mitsube (talk) 06:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

This is what happens with translations. We tend to translate sila as morality, ethics &c. "Conduct" might be more precise.

"Also, this page states that the first 5 precepts are common to all Buddhism, but it looks like 6-8 are not, and that should be more clearly stated." I'm not sure about this. Does anyone know whether the 8 precepts are significantly practised in Mahayana? In Theravada they're recommended for observance days, but not obligatory. Practice is quite common. Peter jackson (talk) 11:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Mahayanans (in my admittedly limited experience) observe all 8 precepts when in sesshin (or equivalent), but not necessarily otherwise. and some mahayana sects (and vajrayana, of course) have a non-ascetic interpretation of precept 3 that allows for marriage with normal sexual relations. --Ludwigs2 12:06, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

You mean they have a different version of the 8 precepts? Peter jackson (talk) 16:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

no, I imagine it's just different readings of it. a phrase like 'refrain from sexual misconduct' (which is probably an iffy translation to begin with) can be read narrowly to mean complete abstinence or broadly to mean complete propriety. --Ludwigs2 18:53, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

You mean the 5 precepts then? I don't know of anyone who treats those as requiring celibacy.

The translation is good enough. More literally, misconduct in relation to desires, but that's naturally understood as referring to the preeminent desire as in Kamasutra. Peter jackson (talk) 11:07, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Watchers

In view of our speculation above about how many people might be reading our discussions without taking part, I thought it might be interesting to look up how many people have the article on their watchlists. If I've used the system right, the answer is 1056. That presumably includes some who've left Wikipedia without blanking their watchlists, but it does seem rather a lot. Peter jackson (talk) 11:56, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Is it a lot? Frm what I've read on this subject, it sounds like the going average for high profile pages. And don't think for a minute that anyone is reading this. Having a page on your watchlist and following the discussion is altogether two different things. Viriditas (talk) 00:32, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Certainly, but it's interesting anyway. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

And don't think for a minute that anyone is reading this. I am. I doubt I am alone. 20040302 (talk) 17:49, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Heh. Whatever you do, don't think of the color red! :-) Viriditas (talk) 13:24, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Four Noble Truths

Should be mentioned in the lead. Viriditas (talk) 10:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Possibly, but it's very hard to come up with a sufficiently brief explanation that would comply with NPOV. See User:Peter jackson#Four noble truths for some things scholars have said on the subject, which would have to be taken into account. Peter jackson (talk) 11:09, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

A bit of a misunderstanding. I'm not saying we should explain it in the lead, but rather mention it as a core principle, which is already discussed in the lead, but not mentioned by name. Viriditas (talk) 00:30, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

They function on macro and micro scales. Viewing events in terms of the four noble truths is the basis of appropriate attention, which is especially important in a meditation context. Mitsube (talk) 01:57, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

As already cited in #More on common core, some scholars reject the idea altogether in general, & I don't know of any who'd say specifically that the 4 NTs are core. They seem rather unimportant in Mahayana. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

IIRC, I think it was Ajahn Sumedho (or possibly Ajahn Brahm) who said they were core. Which scholars reject them? Viriditas (talk) 13:25, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

You've now archived the section, but the citations are still available at User:Peter jackson#Diversity.

The fact that 1 or 2 modern teachers say something isn't evidence of anything. Peter jackson (talk) 10:37, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

And yet, water is still wet, and the sun is hot. Life goes on. Viriditas (talk) 01:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Selfdesignation of Buddhists

To my knowledge Buddhism, on the level of the signifier, emerged in the year 1801[34]. Buddhism has a history also in the west prior to this, so I'm curious of how westerners designated Buddhism prior to the modern era? And, I think the selfdesignation of Buddhists should be considered in the article. I hope somebody may provide information on this. --Xact (talk) 20:58, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Though a talk page is not a forum, I find the question interesting: - Self designation is always rather curious. Borges says in "The sect of the Phoenix": Unless I am mistaken, the same phenomenon is observable among the Buddhists: the name by which they are known to the world is not the same as the one they themselves pronounce. (He isn't totally mistaken).

According the to OED, "The Sanskrit Bouddha 'follower of Buddha' was previously used: hence the form Bouddhist " The 1801 basis is from Joinville's article in Asiatic Res. vol VII, p398 - where he says In the opinion of the Boudhists, there has been no creation. and on p400: If Boudhism could not have established itself among the Brahmi'ns, etc... The spelling we are familiar with came in 1816, in the Asiatic Journal Vol. 1, page 19: The name and the peculiarities of Buddhism have a good deal fixed my attention. (no author given) and on p21 The harmless sacrifices of the Chinese are .. obviously Buddhist. -- (20040302 (talk) 11:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC))

"curious of how westerners designated Buddhism prior to the modern era?" Well they didn't of course. Generally speaking they weren't aware there was such a "thing". Buddhists were just lumped in under heathens/pagans/idolators. Peter jackson (talk) 11:42, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I must admit I find this business of names rather pointless. Of course most Buddhists don't call themselves that, because they don't speak English. So what? Peter jackson (talk) 11:44, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, what do "buddhists" in asia call themselves (just a general sampling, since I'm sure there are many different names)?

It's the nature of names that they are assigned by others. Christians were not Christians until the Romans called them that; Mormons still call themselves latter day saints, You weren't Peter Jackson until your parents forced you to recognize that you were, etc. It's a much harder problem to suss out when the thing that later got the name actually started to exist. --Ludwigs2 19:16, 20 January 2010 (UTC) Bold textBuddhism is the study of buddha.

A typical self-designation is "insider" (20040302 (talk) 00:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC))

There's probably something to that. Certainly the Pali term "ito bahiddhā", literally "outside here", is used to refer to non-Buddhists.

"what do "buddhists" in asia call themselves" Well, how about looking up a few dictionaries of Chinese, Japanese, Thai &c? Will you be any the wiser after doing so? Peter jackson (talk) 10:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure the name "Christian" was invented by the Romans. The New Testament says it was first used in Antioch, which, though part of the Roman Empire, wasn't particularly Roman. People mostly spoke Greek or Aramaic, not Latin.

"It's the nature of names that they are assigned by others." I suspect that's an overgeneralization (& that you were aware of that when you said it). The earliest thing you might call a "name" for Buddhists is the Pali Canon's term "Sakyaputtiya". Even that is used mainly if not entirely in the Vinaya, and may mean "Buddhist monk" rather than "Buddhist". Literally, it means "follower of the son of the Sakya(s)", that is, "follower of the member of the Sakya tribe". Peter jackson (talk) 10:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

A term used in the Canon is 'Savaka', which literally means 'Dhamma Hearer' and is sometimes less acurately translated as 'follower of the Dhamma' . The term 'Sakyaputtiya' literally means '[the sect] born of the Sakyan son'. It is referred to in the canon when designating a monk using the term 'Sakyaputtiya Samana' meaning 'A Renuncient who has gone forth under the Sakyan Son'. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 17:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Savaka is, as you say, a "term". It's not a "name". Similarly, Christians may call themselves "believers". A term, but not a name. Peter jackson (talk) 17:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

This discussion is with reference to the self designation of those on the Buddha's path. Savaka is one such term that was and is used as a self designation. Whether it is a term or name is irrelevant. With reference to the word 'Christian', it serves as both a term and a name. Christians also call themselves, 'Christians'. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 18:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

A difference between a term & a name is that the former is more general. In this case, followers of other ancient Indian teachers also called themselves savakas. Peter jackson (talk) 12:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually it is the other way around. The use of a 'name' can be more general, as it can refer to any object or class of objects whereas the use of a 'term' more commonly denotes a certain object or class of objects within a particular group or field. To reiterate the point made below, a discussion of this nature however is neither particularly relevant to the purpose of the discussion and does not expand on the subject matter.

The term Savaka is used as a self designation- clearly it would be used within the context of a 'Savaka who has gone forth under such and such a teacher'- the common designation for those practicing Indic religion/practical philosophy.

KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 15:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Reminder

Discussion page is used to help improve the article. Please focus on that task. Viriditas (talk) 11:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

In principle, but in practice we tend to allow ourselves a bit of leeway. All things are interconnected, anyway. Peter jackson (talk) 12:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

But the interconnection should not overwhelm our goal here. Ajahn Brahm actually addresses this problem. We need to focus on improving the article. Viriditas (talk) 12:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand your reference to AB. Peter jackson (talk) 10:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Syncretism vs. Variety - NPOV

It is important to understand that efforts towards syncretism of views only provide yet another view. I refer you all to WP:RNPOV, which must be the bedrock for any discourse on Buddhist articles on WP (although admittedly, WP:RNPOV is possibly more salient to the Ibrahimic religions.). Likewise, regarding the meaning of NPOV, we are told "NPOV policy is simply that we should describe disputes, not engage in them."

Demonstrating that there are opposing views or opinions regarding a specific issue does not mean that the issue does not deserve mentioning. Neutrality is not centrality. Wikipedia articles are not written to imply that all positions are equal; Wikipedia articles are to be written in a way that does not evaluate positions. By writing from a neutral point of view about something to which you're opposed, you are not implying that the belief is equal, you are merely accepting that an encyclopedia is not the place to be evaluating the contrasting views. You may believe that the other opinion is wrong objectively. You are not contradicting that belief by accepting that Wikipedia is not the place to demonstrate that to other people before it has become accepted human knowledge.

An example: 4NT. There is plenty of evidence to show, just from reading the religious literature of different cultures, that the 4NT is almost always a central or core topic. AFAIK, there is no tradition that denies that Gautama Buddha turned the wheel of Dharma at Sarnath, and that his sermons was based on the 4NT. There really should be no problem in stating the centrality of the 4NT, albeit with a mention that some Buddhists do not consider the 4NT to be so important to themselves. E.g., there are those that say the 4NT are for those of less ability - but they do not deny that the 4NT are the teachings of Buddha.

I tired of contributing to this article a long time ago because these simple rules are either not properly acknowledged, or they are not adhered to. I suggest that current contributers spend less time discussing, and more time mending and repairing the Buddhism article. (20040302 (talk) 10:11, 19 January 2010 (UTC))

"There is plenty of evidence to show, just from reading the religious literature of different cultures, that the 4NT is almost always a central or core topic." That's simply false. If you read non-Westernized literature from Mahayana traditions you'll find not much on the subject. For example, Korean Approach to Zen is Buswell's annotated translation of the complete works of Chinul, the most important figure in Korean Buddhism. The index gives only 1 ref for 4 NT, to a passage where Chinul says they're for sravakas (as against bodhisattvas).

"AFAIK, there is no tradition that denies that Gautama Buddha turned the wheel of Dharma at Sarnath, and that his sermons was based on the 4NT." True, but drawing conclusions from that is original research.

"E.g., there are those that say the 4NT are for those of less ability - but they do not deny that the 4NT are the teachings of Buddha." But "those" are the Mahayana, who're actually the majority of Buddhists. You can't marginalize them because you think they've got the Budha's teachings wrong. That's not NPOV. Peter jackson (talk) 11:50, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Now here's another bit of policy (WP:DUE): "Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. 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. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and neutral, but still be disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially in relation to recent events that may be in the news. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements."

It doesn't say there, though it seems reasonable to suppose, that this significance is to be determined by following the practice of reliable sources. Now, if you look at User:Peter jackson/Textbooks, you'll find the tables of contents of a number of scholarly books about Buddhism. 3 of them have a chapter on the 4 NT. 7 don't, relegating them to a section within a chapter. And at User:Peter jackson/Encyclopaedias I've done the same for encyclopaedia articles on the subject. None have a top-level heading on 4 NT.

Conclusion: the 4 NT have a modest importance for Buddhism as a whole, which should be reflected in the article. Peter jackson (talk) 12:00, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

"Demonstrating that there are opposing views or opinions regarding a specific issue does not mean that the issue does not deserve mentioning. Neutrality is not centrality." Absolutely. But it does mean that any mention is supposed to comply with NPOV, which in turn often means taking up space. This has to be weighed against the importance of the topic in determining whether something belongs in the lead. It's less often a problem for the article. Peter jackson (talk) 12:03, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

PJ, I will not be drawn back into one of your endless contradictory dialogues. Suffice to say that there are plenty of Mahayana sources that see the 4NT as a core teaching. Let me demonstrate: Nagarjuna MMK Chapter 24. The chapters on Suffering through to the Three higher trainings, Lam Rim Chenmo, Tsongkhapa (actually, any Lam Rim text). The entire cycle of teachings on the path of renunciation in Dzog Chen; within Zen, the 4NT are taught in monasteries and form a key teaching - just google Zen and Four Noble truths for plenty of references. Chinul is not the only Buddhist teacher; not even the only teacher of Zen. Let me quote WP Zen The core of Zen practice is seated meditation, widely known by its Japanese name zazen, and recalls both the posture in which the Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, and the elements of mindfulness and concentration which are part of the Eightfold Path as taught by the Buddha. All of the Buddha's fundamental teachings—among them the Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths, the idea of dependent origination, the five precepts, the five aggregates, and the three marks of existence—also make up important elements of the perspective that Zen takes for its practice. Therefore, the authors of the Zen article at WP consider 4NT to be a fundamental teaching of Buddha. There are far greater fish to fry than to be so opposed to the idea of core teachings of Buddhism.

Also, your idea that the 4NT is not a core teaching in Buddhism implies an ignorance of what the central theme of the 4NT are and how they relate to dependent origination and (certainly within the Nagarjuna lineages) emptiness. Moreover, there is an almost endless supply of Tibetan literature on the three higher trainings - which form the basis of the 4th of the NT. Without the three higher trainings, there are no monks/ethics, no meditation, and no wisdom.

What I will grant is that some modern secular Buddhist teachings tend to downplay the inevitability of future rebirth, which then undermines teachings on dependant origination and most especially the 4NT. Without rebirth, all we have to do is to wait for death to reach a (nihilistic) cessation of suffering, and therefore the basis of renunciation (samsara) is destroyed; even the basis of renunciation for Bodhisattvas (the binding to samsara of all beings as the basis of Bodhichitta) is destroyed.

There is no doubt that there are plenty of Mahayana traditions that place emphasis more strongly on the grounds of Bodhisattva training - though - as Tsongkhapa points out, these are only a Mahayana rendition of the three higher trainings, albeit based in the motive of Bodhichitta rather than of Renunciation.

You can choose to respond, or not. I will not waste my time any more dealing with your strange views of Buddhism, but I believe that if you cannot accept the 4NT as being core to Buddhism, you should find other articles to edit. The four noble truths are to be found both explicitly and implictly in the Kanjur, the Tenjur, the Pali canon, and the Chinese canon; they underpin the teachings of the Sravakas and the Bodhisattvas, as well as the Tantrikas. They are actively taught by thousands of teachers from many traditions. They are universally acknowledged as the subject of the very first discourse given by Buddha. --12:59, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

"the 4 NT have a modest importance for Buddhism as a whole, which should be reflected in the article" - Peter jackson

Wow. What a soundbite for demonstrating a lack of understanding of this subject. PJ, this has to be the most ridiculous argument I have yet seen from you, and surely one of the most ridiculous arguments yet seen on a discussion about Buddhism or indeed, probably most articles on Wikipedia.

You seem to justify it with the bizaare statement that "you'll find the tables of contents of a number of scholarly books about Buddhism. 3 of them have a chapter on the 4 NT. 7 don't, relegating them to a section within a chapter." So becuase a number of 'scholarly books' don't decide to dedicate a chapter heading on the 4 noble truths but still all talk about them, you reach the conclusion it is not significant for Buddhism. Again, quite frankly emabarrassingly inept logic, I strongly, strongly advise you to abandon this argument to save your self what little credibility you have left, if indeed it is possible.

Clearly a better example of 'missing the point' could rarely be found. In both Theravada and Mahayana, the 4 noble truths are of central importance. The truth of suffering, the cause, cessation, and practice leading to that cessation form the basis of all of these practices and schools. To read scholarship or any text on this subject and fail to see this is simply astounding. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 19:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

One other point I shall adress to PJ- you seem to have an unfailing blind acceptance of anything labelled 'scholarship', in other words, your own selection of texts, representing the opinions of a small group of people, from a small part of the world viewing things from a skewed world view and filled with bias . This is a recurrant theme in most of your dialogue, and it is probably one of the things that lends to you making unsupportable arguments, since many of these 'scholars' are frequently in disagreement with each other. The irony of this PJ, is that you also make sweeping statemnts about 'Mahayanists' etc, when in actual fact all of your sources are from a small handful of western scholarly works. Even then, as stated above your interpretation of these shcolarly works is often most dubious.

How do you know what 'Mahayanists' think? A view on what 'they think 'is another sweeping generalization based on no evidence. For example, unless there have been well analysed, detailed mass survays of millions of people regarding their views on this issue, any such statment that 'Mahayanists think such and such' is little more than baseless speculation. You simply cannot answer such a question, other than through observing the purpose and practices conducted by such individuals. The 4 NT are foundational to ALL Mahayayana and Theravada practice- they are practices done with the recognition of suffering, and the intent to reduce it for oneself and others. This is clear from understanding practice, as well as scholarship on all of these issues. Your rudimentry attempt at a basic survey of 'chapter headings', based on a random selection of 7 books on Buddhism you happen to have, without attempting to look at the context, is a good example of why such misguided conclusions can be drawn when one loses the correct perspective for understanding an issue. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 00:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

"Suffice to say that there are plenty of Mahayana sources that see the 4NT as a core teaching. Let me demonstrate: Nagarjuna MMK Chapter 24. The chapters on Suffering through to the Three higher trainings, Lam Rim Chenmo, Tsongkhapa (actually, any Lam Rim text). The entire cycle of teachings on the path of renunciation in Dzog Chen; within Zen, the 4NT are taught in monasteries and form a key teaching - just google Zen and Four Noble truths for plenty of references."

Interestingly, Warder suggests Nagarjuna wasn't Mahayana.

Yes, the 4 NT have a modest place in traditonal Tibetan teaching as an elementary teaching.

What is taught in Zen monasteries today, like much of modern Buddhism, is liable to be influenced by Western ideas. (General citations at User:Peter jackson#Modern Buddhism) Peter jackson (talk) 11:03, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

"Let me quote WP Zen"

Why? Wikipedia itself says it isn't a reliable source, so it must be true. Peter jackson (talk) 11:05, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

"There are far greater fish to fry than to be so opposed to the idea of core teachings of Buddhism."

I'm not opposed to anything. I'm simply pointing out that the practice of some editors of this article of marginalizing or suppressing forms & views of Buddhism that disagree with their own is against Wikipedia policy. Peter jackson (talk) 11:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Most of the rest of what you say, like much of what I said above, is original research. Peter jackson (talk) 11:08, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

"you reach the conclusion it is not significant for Buddhism."

I never said it's not significant. What I'm saying is it's not as significant in traditional Buddhism as it is in modernist Buddhism, to which essentially all Western Buddhist belong. (See on this last point Routledge Encyclopedia of Buddhism, 2007, page 286.) It's also less significant in Mahayana than Theravada. Peter jackson (talk) 11:11, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

"you seem to have an unfailing blind acceptance of anything labelled 'scholarship'"

Missing the point. I'm well aware of the fallibility of scholarship. Its own contradictions are enough to make that clear. But such scholarship is the basis of Wikipedia. That's policy (WP:SOURCES). It's as simple as that.

"in other words, your own selection of texts,"

I'm quite happy to listen to scholars others may cite.

"representing the opinions of a small group of people, from a small part of the world viewing things from a skewed world view and filled with bias ."

Wikipedia is not supposed to be based on conspiracy theories like this.

Conspiracy theory? I suggest you look up the definition of the term 'conspiracy'. This is the plain truth, and has been written about much being quite clear. Many scholars are viewing things from a skewed world view within the Judeo-Christian framework of Western religious scholarship, building on scholarship that was even more that way inclined. Now, this does not mean that they are deliberately misinterprating or misrepresenting things much of the time. Far from it, many of these scholars are so far down the path of being conditioned to think a certain way and make nonsensical assumtions (D Lopez being a perfect example)as to render the capacity to have an objective view largely unavailable. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 17:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

"This is the plain truth"

See WP:TRUTH. Also WP:REDFLAG. Peter jackson (talk) 18:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

And what's your view of Buddhism based on? It's based on "the opinions of a small group of people, ... viewing things from a skewed world view and filled with bias ." Namely, modernist Buddhist teachers, those bits of traditional literature they cite in support of their views, and those non-Buddhist sources influenced by them. Peter jackson (talk) 11:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

So you label my statement 'conspiracy theory', yet then use this same 'conspiracy theory' yourself to criticize what I was saying. Make up your mind if your not going to contradict yourself from one sentance to the next. KnowledgeAndVision (talk) 18:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

That's exactly what I was criticizing you for: criticizing me for doing something you were doing yourself.

Is it a conspiracy theory to say that religions evolve? And that therefore there are "new" forms of them? And that in particular a "new" form evolved in 19th-century Ceylon, influenced by Western ideas, including Western ideas about Buddhism, and spread to many in the East, and was responsible for the conversions of Westerners to Buddhism? And that this form of Buddhism, just like all the others, often claims that it "is" Buddhism? Peter jackson (talk) 18:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

"A view on what 'they think 'is another sweeping generalization based on no evidence."

Exactly the point I've repeatedly made myself. The practice of some editors of making sweeping statements about Buddhism, i.e. about the beliefs of 350,000,000 people, based on a few modern Buddhist writers they happen to have read. Peter jackson (talk) 11:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

"a random selection of 7 books on Buddhism you happen to have"

Wrong. If you take the trouble to read my subpage you'll see that the selection is based mainly on a review in a leading scholarly journal. And I don't happen to have most of them. Peter jackson (talk) 11:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, much else of what's said above is original research. Peter jackson (talk) 11:22, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it would help if I clarify what I'm doing here.

First, here's the policy (WP:SOURCES}: "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available"

So I don't need to do this. I'm doing it as a courtesy. I try to assume good faith, to assume people are genuinely perplexed about apparent differences between what scholars say & what they themselves have been taught, rather than simply looking for excuses to censor scholarship in favour of their own dogmas. So I often try to explain. Not always successfully. Sometimes with opinion, original research, loose use of language, oversimplification, interpretation, mistakes. All that doesn't matter much, because it's not directly relevant to improving the article. It's just a courtesy.

The general point is quite simple, but is liable to be forgotten in all the detailed complexity. Scholars have collectively studied a large amount of Buddhist literature, along with field observations by anthropologists of what actually goes on in Buddhist societies. And what they say is simply this. Buddhism is extremely varied. The Buddhism of those teachers popular in the West is a fair bit less varied. Therefore to base the article on those teachers would give an unduly narrow picture of Buddhism. Peter jackson (talk) 17:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

PJ, thank-you for your final remarks. Where I differ from you appears to be about what are considered to be 'Scholars' and likewise peer-reviewed publications. For me, there is nothing particularly salient about the modern era of Buddhologists who have often just got it wrong - for various reasons. See eg Huntington on this. But as you say, generally they tend to be overly limited - whereas field anthropologists find things are different. What is important is to recognise that within Buddhist literature, and the Buddhist tradition, there have been plenty of academics - Nalanda monastery was famous for the quality of it's academics; likewise various traditions, such as the Gelugpas in Tibet, have spent a LOT of time undergoing peer review. Indeed, it is very easy to understand the works of Bhavaviveka as a peer review and critique of Buddhapalita's discussion over Nagarjuna's root text.

Nor is the use of classical academics a new idea. In classical studies, it is not uncommon to find Pliny being cited as a contemporary. (Pliny says "xxx" ). When you accuse me of original research, it is because I rely upon academic, peer reviewed texts which maybe you consider to be primary sources. But many of them are not primary sources. Candrakirti's commentaries on the MMK were written centuries after the original text. Likewise, Tsongkhapa's further commentaries were written another few hundred years later.

As a side note, in history and historiography, it is generally considered best to use primary sources where available. (see Primary_source#History_and_historiography), and this could be considered relevant to those parts of the Buddhism articles which are concerned with history and historiography.

I do not disagree with you that Buddhism is varied - more so than the Ibrahimic religions, possibly less so than the religions that are grouped together as 'Hinduism'. But within that variety, there ARE common themes. We have to really look at minority groups to find an absences of those themes. For instance, and putting 'folk' Buddhism to one side, the concept of a path to enlightenment is a pretty strong trope. Likewise, the purpose of a path. Having a path and a purpose strongly indicates the basis for both. This is what the 4NT describe - there is no need to accuse me of OR regarding this issue.

Similarly - AFAIK, it is universally acknowleged that the 4NT were the subject of the first sermon of Buddha after his enlightenment, given at Sarnath. There are so many references to this that I find it astounding that you could consider this to be controversial. Indeed, I challenge you to find any reliable resource that rejects this notion. Certainly there may be dispute regarding just how many times the wheel of Dharma was turned - but that is a secondary issue.

Regarding cultural, or folk Buddhism as a source for describing Buddhism (ie the primary sources of field anthropologists) - my concern here is that first of all, anthropologists are challenged by knowing what the questions are (there's a reasonably well-known story among field anthropologists about the researcher who showed different pictures of things to a 'native' as a language acquisition exercise and always got the same response.. What he didn't understand was the nuance of the an idiomatic term for 'picture') but, possibly more to the point, I wholeheartedly support articles on folk Buddhism; on the understand that we cannot allow these varied beliefs to be used to deny the relevance of academic studies of the history and teachings of Buddhism. Folk Buddhism is as varied as the folks that follow it. Buddhist literature and the academic/monastic traditions that use such are varied enough already. (20040302 (talk) 16:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC))

The question is, reliable sources for what? If you want the article to say "Some Buddhists think ..." or "Another interpretation is ...", no problem. But "350,000,000 Buddhists believe"? No way can any Buddhist source be considered reliable for that. They're just too biased. Peter jackson (talk) 17:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

"Similarly - AFAIK, it is universally acknowleged that the 4NT were the subject of the first sermon of Buddha after his enlightenment, given at Sarnath. There are so many references to this that I find it astounding that you could consider this to be controversial."

I don't. Read what I said. I explicitly agreed with that statement. I simply added that any attempt to draw conclusions from that fact is original research. Peter jackson (talk) 17:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Drawing conclusions from the fact. Okay - one could get very cyclical here. But if it is universally acknowledged that the Buddha taught the 4NT, then your perception of 'core' is distinct from mine. How about a set of teachings which are universally acknowledged as being taught by Buddha (regardless of any emphasis or prioritisation)? I can certainly live with that. (20040302 (talk))

That would be biased, because those teachings are more important in Theravada than in Mahayana. Peter jackson (talk) 18:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I can say a bit more on the 1st sermon. At one level the tradition is clear & unanimous. The reason the Buddha taught those things to those people on that occasion is identical to the reason he taught anything to anybody on any occasion. Namely, it was the appropriate thing to teach those people on that occasion. No more & no less. Peter jackson (talk) 11:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Folk Buddhism. Anthropological studies of this can throw all sorts of light on things. Remember that monks are folk too. These anthropologists study what monks & lay people actually get up to. Sometimes they, or others, draw attention to aspects of the scriptural &c traditions previously neglected by scholars. The question can be asked, without prejudging the answer, is Buddhism what a tiny number of scholars, Buddhist or otherwise, think it is, or what the vast majority of actual Buddhists think it is? (And I don't prejudge the answer: just think of the Catholic parallel: it seems obvious to me that Catholicism is what the Pope says it is, whether or not people who call themselves Catholics agree; but what about Buddhism, which has no Pope?) Peter jackson (talk) 17:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

An example of anthropological study drawing attention to things. Spiro, Buddhism and Society is a study of Burmese Buddhism. He classifies it into 3 aspects:

nibbanic Buddhism: the path to nibbana
kammatic Buddhism: performing good kamma & avoiding bad
apotropaic Buddhism: rites for protection from evil spirits &c

He doesn't claim there are 3 types of Buddhists; these are aspects of the same Buddhism. He stresses that all 3 are found in the Pali Canon, a point that's often ignored. Peter jackson (talk) 18:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

That's a nice example, PJ. Compare it to e.g the three scopes thesis put forward by Atisha - that religious activity can be divided into the four: vis. (a) benefitting this life (b) benefitting the next life(s) through good karma (c) following a path to liberation (Nirvana) and (c) following the Bodhisattvas path to Buddhahood. I can see how the comparison could be considered to be OR, but the fact that Atisha said it, (and, with relevant sources, that Tsongkhapa took it as the basis of the structure of the Lam Rim cycles) certainly is not. (20040302 (talk))

Another example. Welch, Practice of Chinese Buddhism. He interviewed lots of Chinese monks, crosschecking them against themselves & each other. One interesting thing he says is about schools. If you ask a monk what school he belongs to, he'll probably say Lin-chi (Linji in the new spelling, Rinzai in Japanese). That is, his teaching lineage goes back to that branch of Chan/Zen. But if you ask him what school of practice he belongs to, he'll probably say Pure Land. Peter jackson (talk) 18:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

"As a side note, in history and historiography, it is generally considered best to use primary sources where available. (see Primary_source#History_and_historiography), and this could be considered relevant to those parts of the Buddhism articles which are concerned with history and historiography."

Be careful what this means. It's a statement of what historians do. Wikipedia policy (WP:PSTS) is to use secondary sources, i.e. those historians. Peter jackson (talk) 18:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

"But within that variety, there ARE common themes."

As I said before (though I'm getting a bit confused about which sections I said what in, & Viriditas has just archived a lot of them), you mustn't confuse "common" & "important". They're different concepts. "Oslo is the capital of Norway" is a common belief. It's not an important one. What you have to do is look through the literature & actual practice of each major form of Buddhism & see what they each treat as important. When I say "you", of course, it would be original research for Wikipedia editors to do this. Scholars are the only sources available who can be cited. Modern Buddhist writers, quite apart from their own biases (they're part of the subject), are logistically incapable of studying everything for themselves. They would actually have to rely on scholars for a lot of the subject, just as scholars have to rely on each other. Peter jackson (talk) 18:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Regardless, and fortunately, Buddhism has a huge collection of works that cover over two thousand years of scholarship and peer review, many of whom state (in one way or another) that the 4NT lie at the very heart of Buddhism. Thank goodness we do not have to depend upon modern scholars for our knowledge of Buddhism. 20040302 (talk) 02:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

"huge" is the key word here. Even if the editors of this article had between them read the whole of that literature, which isn't the case by a long chalk, it would be totally impossible for them to summarize it without being guilty of original research. That's another reason why scholars have to be used. Peter jackson (talk) 11:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the Four Noble Truths, the Heart Sutra states: "In emptiness [...] There is no suffering, no accumulation, no elimination, and no path." All four are shot down in succession for the bodhisattva path of Prajnaparamita. This same line is echoed in longer Prajnaparamita texts as well as in the Shurangama Sutra. They are viewed as empty because they fundamentally have no basis, and are just interdependent phenomena -- transient images, all depending on a self. In this type of Mahayana teaching, all suffering is ultimately an illusion, and to say "I suffer" is ignorance, further creating causes and seeds of karma to add to "your" suffering. The real highest teaching of the Mahayana is usually represented by the Buddha's silence. Then when his disciples do not understand, then he teaches them with a discourse. In Mahayana, the Four Noble Truths and all other Buddhist teachings ever spoken (including the bodhisattva path) are simply skillful means to attain True Suchness and Anuttara Samyaksambodhi. This True Suchness of the mind is the proper basis of Mahayana. In this regard, I do not see the Four Noble truths as fundamental to Mahayana at all, but rather as an early form of skillful means in Buddhism. I believe the Lotus Sutra echoes these sentiments over and over again as well.

As for the Wikipedia Zen article, it's sort of a joke to quote that as anything authoritative. Quite frankly, on pages such as that with subjects carrying such mystique in the western world, the quality is so very low. Half of the people probably think Zen is a type of samurai philosophy invented in Japan. In contrast, the quality of a page written by specialists on an obscure sutra is more likely to bear much more resemblance to the truth, simply due to the nature of the subject.

As for how important the Four Noble Truths are in the larger scheme of Buddhism, I believe they were accepted as core teachings largely due to the still-pervasive tendency to equate "Theravada = All Early Buddhism." From reading Mahayana sutras and their references to the Sutra Pitaka, I believe they may be more important to Theravada than to the other early schools in India. For example, the Theravadins commonly sum up the core teachings of the Buddha into the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. However, I never seem to see these two sets of teachings referenced together in the Mahayana sutras. The Noble Eightfold Path seems to be more commonly referenced than the Four Noble Truths, but the teaching of the five skandhas is referenced more than both of them combined. In the Sandhinirmocana Sutra (2nd century CE), it cites different teachings of the time proposed by forest monks: analyzing the skandhas, bases of consciousness, phenomena, various realms, stations of mindfulness, supernatural abilities, sense faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of bodhi, and the noble eightfold path. Nowhere does it cite the Four Noble Truths as something to analyze for understanding. In the Amitabha Sutra, it also cites the five powers, the seven factors of bodhi, and the eightfold noble path among others. No Four Noble Truths, though, yet again. Tengu800 (talk) 17:22, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Why does it say he was born in Lumbini?

I know he was born in what is Lumbinin today. But shouldn't it imply that he was born in 'Ancient India in what is now Lumbini? I mean this has been brought up before. And it was put down as something like. And then it get's changed. The water and ground. 71.105.87.54 (talk) 05:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

It isn't Lumbini today. That was its ancient name. Its modern name is Rummindei.

I'm not sure whether historians would assert as definite fact that he was born there. The evidence is a commemorative pillar placed there well over 2 centuries later. Compare with the statement that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which is recorded within a century or so of the event, according to the source datings accepted by most scholars, but is nevertheless questioned. Peter jackson (talk) 11:40, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

But on that line, could historians assert as a definite fact that he was born at all, or anything at all?

In the Sutta Nipáta (vs. 683) it is stated that the Buddha was born in a village of the Sákyans, in the Lumbineyya Janapada. I don't know of any historians that oppose Lumbini as being the birthplace of Lord Buddha. (20040302 (talk) 12:40, 8 February 2010 (UTC))

"But on that line, could historians assert as a definite fact that he was born at all, or anything at all?"—No, of course not. Peter's point, as I understand it (correct me if I'm mistaken, of course) is that History has no direct, contemporary evidence (birth records or preferably multiple pieces of corroborating evidence dateable around the event itself) upon which a solid historical assertion must rest. Records that follow an event by some generations, whether scriptural or monumental (the pillar), do not constitute a completely convincing historical document, as we don't fully understand the developmental context that led to its creation.

I also don't get the sense we're looking at a situation where any historians are contesting the likelihood that Gautama was born there, just that they wouldn't say it's without a doubt true. /ninly_(talk) 15:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Ninly, I hear you - but contemporary documentary evidence is not proof, not even if there are corroborating pieces of evidence. There is some need for a Web of trust before one can establish fact, and even then there is no guarantee of fact - just a consensus. Well, when it comes to the birthplace of Lord Buddha, there is already a consensus of scholars that acknowledge that Lumbini was the birthplace of Lord Buddha. There are no disputes regarding this issue. Therefore, as long as we accept the scholars, we can accept their findings as fact. For instance, read the first paragraph of Gamma-ray burst. There is no evidence that these gamma ray bursts are always associated with energetic explosions in distant galaxies, yet there is a consensus of scholars the believe this to be the case. There is no dispute, so the sentence reasonably makes the statement as fact. Regardless, there is no issue here, as long as the statement has a cite. We have many cites - Sutta Nipáta (vs. 683) is one. So what is the problem? (20040302 (talk) 17:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC))

I see where you're coming from, and appreciate that web of trust link. I suppose it's more important to note here that while Peter's suggestion may pose some intellectual curiosity (how much I can't say -- I know next to nothing about indology or the relevant ancient history), none of this has much bearing on the original question ("...what is now Lumbini"); discussion about scholarly consensus on the birthplace would be another topic with it's own burden of verifiability, references, etc. /ninly_(talk) 17:31, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

2004, you're right in implying that it's not for WP to decide these questions. It has to follow what the historians actually say, without arguing whether they're right. I was simply raising the question of what they might actually say. You say they're agreed, but offer no citation for that. Instead you cite a primary source of uncertain date.

To return, as Ninly suggests, to the original question, I'm not sure what WP naming policy has to say here. The present-day name of the place in Nepal is Rummindei. On the other hand, in the English-speaking world it's far better-known as the Buddha's birthplace tahn as an obscure village in Nepal. Very likely Lumbini is actually the commoner name in English language sources. Peter jackson (talk) 11:08, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

PJ, it's always feels great when we agree about something. However, if we accept the Sutta Nipata as a primary source, then it can be considered to be contemporary documentary evidence (quite possibly corroborated with other documentary evidence). Regardless, many believe that, as a work of literature, the Sutta Nipata was written down for the first time some years after the events it describes, which would make it a secondary source. (20040302 (talk) 03:15, 10 February 2010 (UTC))

That's not what the terms mean. See WP:PSTS. Primary sources are actual documents, however far removed from the time of the events. Secondary sources are the writings of reputable historians. Peter jackson (talk) 10:33, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

PJ, yes, I read WP:PSTS. I see this: Primary sources are very close to an event, often accounts written by people who are directly involved, offering an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. An account of a traffic accident written by a witness is a primary source of information about the accident; similarly, a scientific paper is a primary source about the experiments performed by the authors. Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources. For me, the qualification of those historical documents that are diaries is relevant - because they are very close to the event - written by people who are directly involved. What are you reading? (20040302 (talk))

I see what you mean. I think the relevant point in that case is "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources." Specifically, the word "reliable", as defined by Wikipedia. A tradition written down long after the events doesn't qualify as a reliable source for them. Just think about it in our context. Nearly all Buddhist scriptures are precisely such traditions. They claim to be accounts of what the Buddha said & did, but they were written down centuries later from oral tradition. They're not to be treated as reliable secondary sources. And there are other such traditions not even in the scriptures, such as the Zen legend of the Buddha holding up a flower to Kasyapa, first recorded in the 11th century. Such traditions can't reasonably be treated as equivalent to the writings of historians. Similarly, mediaeval legends about King Arthur are not equivalent to historians. Even the gospels aren't equivalent to historians. Modern scholarship generally accepts they're not first-hand eye-witness accounts, i.e. primary sources in the literal sense defined above. Peter jackson (talk) 17:43, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

PJ Yes - I see the point regarding reliable sources. I think it's important to recognise the orthogonality between primary/secondary sources and reliable sources; just because a source is secondary doesn't make it reliable. In this case, I believe that we can agree that the Sutra biographies of Buddha are indeed secondary sources - on the basis that no-one suggests that they occurred contemporaneously. However, as they are our sole sources for the events they describe, they can be also described as primary sources, because they are original material in the sense that we have nothing more original to go by. I feel that the primary/secondary distinction is not particularly useful here though. What is more important is whether or not we can claim a Sutra is reliable (in the historic sense). My feeling regarding things that appear to have no major political or social impact on interpretation (ie parts of a text which are incidental to their purpose) is that they are often reasonably accurate, regardless of their antiquity. Of course, it's an opinion, but one shared by many archaeologists and historians. On balance, my consideration is that the Sutras can be relied upon for incidental information, on the understanding that the oral/textual tradition may have corrupted some key terms or names. I believe that the consensus of scholars agrees with me on this, and acknowledge that Lumbini was the birthplace of Lord Buddha. I would suggest that anyone who disagrees with that is in a considerable minority, and therefore is not relevant to WIkipedia. In general (because of the problems of authorship and dating) I would possibly agree with you and hold that generally Sutras are not a very reliable source for the purposes of Wikipedia but their historic content should not be ignored - and we (well, scholars) can still place upper boundaries on their respective age. (20040302 (talk) 18:35, 11 February 2010 (UTC))

You may well be right on the specific point. Maybe most scholars agree that he was born there. But that has to be supported by citations from them, not from scriptures. The same applies to anything else. Peter jackson (talk) 18:52, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

^ Various professional fields treat the distinction between primary and secondary sources in differing fashions. Some fields and references also further distinguish between secondary and tertiary sources. Primary, secondary and tertiary sources are broadly defined here for the purposes of Wikipedia.
^ This University of Maryland library page provides typical examples of primary, secondary and tertiary sources.
^
Definitions of primary sources:
- The University of Nevada, Reno Libraries define primary sources as providing "an inside view of a particular event". They offer as examples: original documents, such as autobiographies, diaries, e-mail, interviews, letters, minutes, news film footage, official records, photographs, raw research data, and speeches; creative works, such as art, drama, films, music, novels, poetry; and relics or artifacts, such as buildings, clothing, DNA, furniture, jewelry, pottery.
- The University of California, Berkeley library offers this definition: "Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. Primary sources were either created during the time period being studied, or were created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs) and they reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer."
^ University of California, Berkeley library defines "secondary source" as "a work that interprets or analyzes an historical event or phenomenon. It is generally at least one step removed from the event".
^ Borough of Manhattan Community College, A. Philip Randolph Memorial Library, "Research Help:Primary vs. Secondary Sources" notes that a secondary source "analyzes and interprets primary sources", is a "second-hand account of an historical event" or "interprets creative work". It also states that a secondary source "analyzes and interprets research results" or "analyzes and interprets scientific discoveries".
^ The National History Day website states simply that: "Secondary sources are works of synthesis and interpretation based upon primary sources and the work of other authors."

[1] Various professional fields treat the distinction between primary and secondary sources in differing fashions. Some fields and references also further distinguish between secondary and tertiary sources. Primary, secondary and tertiary sources are broadly defined here for the purposes of Wikipedia.

[2] This University of Maryland library page provides typical examples of primary, secondary and tertiary sources.

[3] Definitions of primary sources:
The University of Nevada, Reno Libraries define primary sources as providing "an inside view of a particular event". They offer as examples: original documents, such as autobiographies, diaries, e-mail, interviews, letters, minutes, news film footage, official records, photographs, raw research data, and speeches; creative works, such as art, drama, films, music, novels, poetry; and relics or artifacts, such as buildings, clothing, DNA, furniture, jewelry, pottery.

The University of California, Berkeley library offers this definition: "Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. Primary sources were either created during the time period being studied, or were created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs) and they reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer."

[4] The University of Nevada, Reno Libraries define primary sources as providing "an inside view of a particular event". They offer as examples: original documents, such as autobiographies, diaries, e-mail, interviews, letters, minutes, news film footage, official records, photographs, raw research data, and speeches; creative works, such as art, drama, films, music, novels, poetry; and relics or artifacts, such as buildings, clothing, DNA, furniture, jewelry, pottery.

[5] The University of California, Berkeley library offers this definition: "Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. Primary sources were either created during the time period being studied, or were created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs) and they reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer."

[4] University of California, Berkeley library defines "secondary source" as "a work that interprets or analyzes an historical event or phenomenon. It is generally at least one step removed from the event".

[5] Borough of Manhattan Community College, A. Philip Randolph Memorial Library, "Research Help:Primary vs. Secondary Sources" notes that a secondary source "analyzes and interprets primary sources", is a "second-hand account of an historical event" or "interprets creative work". It also states that a secondary source "analyzes and interprets research results" or "analyzes and interprets scientific discoveries".

[6] The National History Day website states simply that: "Secondary sources are works of synthesis and interpretation based upon primary sources and the work of other authors."

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

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Why does it say he was born in Lumbini?