Talk:Upadana

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[edit] Questionable creation of new sections?

I wanted to make the notion of "clinging" more concrete (for instance, how do you know when you are experiencing "clinging"?), so I added some text from the Abhidhammattha Sangaha. However, doing this made this short article look pretty unstructured. So, wanting to add structure -- and also knowing how some Buddhist practitioners find the Abhidhamma and its commentary to be anathema -- I gave the new material the heading of "From the Abhidhamma Pitaka." To then counter balance this, I gave the preceding material the heading of "From the Sutta Pitaka." However, this last change necessitated shifting around some text that was general to Buddhism versus text that pertained to the Sutta's exposition of the 12 Nidanas.

I regret if this restructuring or introduction of headers has caused me to delete a portion of text which someone else might have valued or to introduce any errors or, in anyone else's estimation, reduced the impact of this article. Please revert any such changes. Best wishes, LarryR 18:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Since I found some of the Abhidhammattha Sangaha material in the Sutta Pitaka and also found Visuddhimagga information related to the Nidanas, it no longer made sense to separate the material in terms of Sutta and non-Sutta sources. So, after adding the aforementioned material, I reorganized once again along content issues, starting with analyzing the term ("types of clinging"), making the term more concrete ("manifestations of clinging") and then contextualizing the term within the grand Nidana scheme ("clinging in the causal chain of suffering"). I hope others will find that this reorganization will make more sense to first time readers of this article; and, I regret and apologize if this reorganization in fact is contrary to any other conscientious editor's desires (in which case, please revert and/or edit, of course :-) ).

I'm tempted to simply merge the first two subsections ("types" and "manifestations") under a subsection of "Definition" or some such, as is done in the skandha article. If anyone else is so inclined, please feel free to do so. Thanks, LarryR 17:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is a disambiguation page needed?

It appears that this article started as a disambiguation page and then morphed into a combo-Buddhism-Hinduism (or, chronologically, should that be combo-Hinduism-Buddhism?) page. Is this the right approach? Or should this current article be split into three pages: a disambiguation page, a "upadana (Buddhism)" page, and a "upadana (Hinduism)" page -- especially given that the terms' usages almost seem conceptually unrelated. Help from anyone with more than five weeks of Wikipedia experience appreciated. Thanks, LarryR 05:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Readability of Buddhism article?

I've been told by a person whose editorial instincts I greatly trust that the current Buddhism portion of this article (which I mostly wrote) is difficult to understand. Thus, I'd like to make some changes that I think would make it more readable but doing so would change aspects of this article that existed prior to my contributions. So, I'd like to run these changes by anyone following this article here on this talk page:

Create a new lead for the article. Initially, the article focussed on the Nidanas. While personally I very much value this, I think most non-Buddhists and non-academic Buddhists will not find such an initial focus to be helpful or of interest. While there is a current one-line reference to upadana's part in "suffering," I'm not sure this is enough (and I additionally think the sentence is difficult for most readers because of its reliance on Pali words, one of which [Tṛṣṇā] does not display on most user's screens -- which gets to the second point below). So, I'm kind of embarrassed to say, I'm thinking a better lead might be a re-hashing of the First Noble Truth where the Buddha mentions the "clinging aggregates." Any objections? Any better ideas?
Use less unfamiliar Pali/Sanskrit. Words like nirvana and dharma have pretty widespread recognition in English-speaking countries now (not the least of which is due to a rock band and television show). In addition, concepts like bodhisattva and paramita are pretty central to significant portions of Buddhist society. Unfortunately, though I wish it were otherwise, words like "upadana" and even probably (?) tanha are largely unfamiliar and strange lookng to the vast majority of potnential wiki-readers and thus, I believe, create obstacles to a wiki-reader's ability to make it through an article. (Am I in error here?) It is for this reason that, after identifying the most common current translation for lesser-known Pali/Sanskrit words (such as "clinging" for upadana, and "craving" for tanha, and "aggregate" for khandha, etc.), I'd like to use the English word as the primary referent in the article. More specifically, in this article, after first defining upadana as "clinging" in this article, I'd like to change future uses of the term to the word "clinging." I know this is controversial -- or at least a difficult call. Does anyone object here? Any alternate suggestions?
Move references to lesser-known sources to end notes. This pertains to my own contributions primarily insomuch that I often toss out sutta titles and the like. In retrospect, I think too many in-article references to lesser-known sources (such as to the Culasihanada Sutta) can be a barrier to most wiki-readers. (Is there a "profile" for such readers?). So, with the exception of frequently referenced sources, such as the Sutta Pitaka or Abhidhamma or Prajnaparamita Sutra or Buddhaghosa, etc., I'd like to move most references to other primary sources to end notes. Sound good?