User talk:Larry Rosenfeld

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[edit] Happy new year to you, too!

Yes there was a semblance of some new year fireworks here (the real new year is in april). Right now I feel quite content with the content on wikipedia ;-) so I'm not doing much editing. Sometimes the reactions I receive are a bit sharp, but never mind, some people take some time to be convinced... It's amazing how strong people can hold wrong preconceptions and claim they're backed up by science, but unaware of what science says... ah well... The remedy for this is, I discovered, to use quotations. Use them enough and people start to doubt: 'Maybe there's some truth in it?' All the best for 2008 Greetings, Sacca 08:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tickling

Consider yourself tickled. — Sebastian 04:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Consider yourself tickled. — Sebastian 04:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] atthakavagga

hello larry,

i had a thorough go at the links-section of the atthakavagga article. i noticed you did some work before me after I finished, so have a look at the way it is now:Greetings, Sacca 06:26, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] gradual training

Hello Larry Rosenfeld. The problem with this article as it stands is quite simple. It is that the expression anupubbi-kathā does not mean 'gradual training'. Regardless of how many times each expression appears in the Pali Canon the point is that the word Kathā means 'talk' not 'training'. If by chance you have gleaned your interpretation from John Bullitt on the page to which you refer in one of your footnotes (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/index.html) then your mistake is understandable. Mr Bullitt has conflated two separate concepts. Either the article you have created is about a method the Buddha used of teaching Dhamma to laypeople which in Pali is called anupubbi-kathā - graduated discourse/step-by-step talk etc. or it is about a description that the Buddha used for the path of purification that is the Dhamma-vinaya patipadā explaining that it is a gradual training (anupubbasikkhā - sikkhā means 'training' in Pali) that takes time to unfold. You must decide which of these your article is about as it cannot be about both of them since they are separate concepts. However, if you have taken your interpretation from John Bullitt's article to which you refer then your mistake is understandable. Yours with best wishes. User:Langdell 19:56 GMT 14th January 2008

Hello Larry. I can understand your reticence in accepting what I say if it is indeed true that Bhikkhu Bodhi and John Bullitt both say that anupubbi-katha means the 'gradual training'. One must assume that it is Bhikkhu Bodhi's interpretation. Nonetheless I can assure you that what I say is true. It should be clear from the passages posted on the article's talk page that kathā means talk (look it up in the PTS dictionary) and never 'training'. There is no need to consult university professors. One can verify it for oneself. The thought occurred yesterday that perhaps the conflation of the two ideas comes from Nyanatiloka's use of the phrase 'gradual instruction' to translate anupubbi-kathā. Nyanatiloka was German and to be frank he does not always get it right though he does correctly identify this phrase as the formulaic talk (he calls it 'sermon' which is not quite correct) that Buddha gave to laypeople. It is a small step from 'instruction' to 'training' but I can wholeheartedly assure you that it is an unambiguous error to translate anupubbi-kathā as 'gradual training'. Kathā means 'talk' as Walshe, Thanissaro Bhikkhu and the PTS dictionary all concur. Sorry if all this seems like pedantry but I was intending to begin a re-edit of the introductory paragraph to the article Buddhism in which I would mention 'the gradual training' (anupubbasikha) because I feel - as John Bullitt does - that this concept is very important for a true and realistic appraisal of what the Buddha taught. As it stands the gradual training article is confused with a separate concept namely the step-by-step talk that the Buddha delivered to laypeople. There should be two separate articles dealing with the two separate subjects. Perhaps you would be kind enough to refer me to the article by Bhikkhu Bodhi in which he translates anupubbi-katha as 'gradual training'. Thankyou and best wishes. User:Langdell12:46GMT 15th January 2008 —Preceding comment was added at 12:56, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Template:Buddhism

Hello. The <br> vs. <br /> was just me using XHTML vs. HTML. MediaWiki actually cleans up the output regardless, it was just bothering me. The other change was due to the new parser. If you append ?timtest=newpp to a URL, you see can how the page renders using the new preprocessor. Using {{!}} outside of ParserFunctions (#if, #ifexpr, etc.) will cause breakage. Really, the {{!}} was never needed in Template:Buddhism where it was being used. More info is available here. Cheers! --MZMcBride (talk) 15:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. ?timtest=newpp works with oldid's as well. To see what was breaking, see here. Look at the bottom of the template output.

[edit] Thank you for the barnstar

I hope it wasn't too soon - we're not done yet! Firstly, there's work remaining in addressing people's concern on talk:Buddha (general). (Maybe you can address Peter jackson's concern there?) Then, if the proposed name change passes, we also need to change the existing redirects. I can automatically change the ones from [[Buddha (general)|Buddhahood]] to simply [[Buddhahood]], using WP:AWB. What should we do about the others? Should we just globally change all occurrences of [[Buddha (general)|...]] to [[Buddhahood|...]], or would it be a good moment to disambiguate them, as mentioned at Talk:Buddha (general)#Whatlinkshere? — Sebastian 07:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Funny Pali translation argument

Hi Larry, I couldn't find a specific Wikipedia article, but Thanissaro Bhikkhu translates kusala as "skillful" instead of "wholesome", citing a time when the Buddha asked someone if they were kusala with a (musical) lute. He wasn't asking them if they were playing wholesome tunes! I posted this to the E-Sangha Pali forum and they said it wasn't as simple as that. Fun anyway! Dhammapal (talk) 04:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nirvana Sutra

I am endeavouring to progress cited scholarship on the Nirvana Sutra page as per Wikipedia guidelines. Uncited information from the main page has been transferred to the talk page. If you could please duly cite this information and transfer it back to the main page it would be most appreciated.
Blessings in the Mindstream
B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 07:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Zen Buddhism in the United States

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

[edit] Categorization of WP Buddhism articles

>> a little blurry note.. (^_^)' (where's your mailbox!?!?) I'm soooo very sorry about my diligent and arbitrary edits. I didn't realize there was a SYSTEM behind the whole thing, and I didn't know people could leave me a message this way. Silly me--people could be cleaning up after me forever!!! I mean, I thought it was a great idea to include as many links as possible. Anyway, now I know. --Rowsees —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rowsees (talk • contribs) 10:05, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] re: Thanks for putting a halt to non-consensual changes of the Buddha page

You said

Jerzy - Thanks so much for stepping in and halting the non-consensual changes of the Buddha page. You are like an "invisible hand" making WP work thoughtfully, progressively. Your stabilizing influence definitely helps prevent non-admins (such as myself) from becoming demoralized at times. Thanks once again so much, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Heh! I noted it on Dab-cleanup, but really hesitated to dive into understanding the issues, and i felt like the least i could do, when i noticed the tag had disappeared, was to at least look at the most superficial layer of the process. I don't know that "halt" is the right word, but i'll try to keep an eye on it, and encourage working toward consensus on the talk page.
I'd be interested in your sense of whether the difficulty lies in wiki tech issues, or disagreements about which distinctions are NPoV, etc., tho i don't want to encourage you to make judgments on any but the most technical aspects. (I have done what i suspect is an unusual amount of Dab editing.)
[Some reading intervenes.]
Ah! I poked around a little, and i see that Abtract has responded constructively, and that you in turn have apparently done some valuable research yourself. But i think i'll lurk only on the outskirts for now, other than dropping a thank you for Abt. Thanks for your work and goodwill.
--Jerzy•t 03:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
You said:

Hi Jerzy!
You wrote:
I'd be interested in your sense of whether the difficulty lies in wiki tech issues, or disagreements about which distinctions are NPoV, etc.,
If you've the time and continued interest, I was hoping you could elaborate on what you mean by "wiki tech issues," etc. Are you referring to the difference between myself and User:Abtract or the issue of why the current Buddha page does not look like a typical dab page or why it is a dab page at all?
Whether or not you get a chance to clarify, I very much appreciate once again your appropriate oversight and goodwill to all. Best wishes, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 04:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, it was clear you-all differed at least on how quickly and straightforwardly the mixture of conventional Dab and prose could be dealt with. Lingering disagreements might really be about the proper "joints" to "carve" along in order to get reasonable article sizes and comfortable routes for typical users to surf along in addressing their own interests. On the other hand, it's possible there are non-obvious details about what kinds of markup MOSDAB contemplates, which i see as more technical than content issues.
Let's see if an unrelated example helps, and if not i'll try to understand the Buddha case well enuf to answer more directly. I'm in progress on Diomedes (disambiguation), which appears on the Dab-cu Cat. Here's my draft so far (which you may want to compare to the current revision):

[edit] Draft as example

Diomedes or Diomede may be:

Mythology:


People:


Other:

[edit] See also

[edit] Comments on Example

(Note i dropped the "bottom matter" (Dab tag and inter-language lks, IIRC) to avoid screwing up your talk page any more than i am by inserting a "See also" section on it. That hdg will be two levels higher in the hierarchy of hdgs; i subordinated it to reduce the disruption.)
An example of a problem i face, not of tech nature, is that i was starting from a Dab page that had more or less two halves, one for (un-dabbed form) of the page's title, "Diomedes", and one for what i'll call an undeclared title, "Diomede". (And another undeclared title, "Diomed".) My interpretation of MOSDAB is that several titles can be Dab'd on one Dab page, in two ways:

  1. several titles that users are likely to type when seeking an article whose undab'd title really should be one of the others, can be dab'd on the same page if the resemblance is either obvious (date, dating, and dates are all forms of the same word) or the variants are explicitly declared (i usually explicitly list, say, James Hanson, Jim Hanson, and Jimmie Hanson in the first line of a Dab page titled either James Hanson or James Hanson (disambiguation).
  2. where there are titles that don't really fit the criterion for disambiguation (e.g. James Hanson would be a reasonable title for any of those Jameses, Jims, and Jimmys, if none of the others had articles -- but if you're after Jaymes Hanson or James Hansen, you've made a mistake that Dabs are not designed to compensate for), i construe the "See other" provision of MOSDAB as suitable (and AFAI can recall, perhaps primarily intended) for helping rescue such users from their errors. So i'd put either James Hansen or James Hansen (disambiguation) (but not the rd-lk Jaymes Hanson) under "See also".

Putting "Diomedes" and "Diomede" (which might be confused as single and plural -- even tho it actually ought to appear to be at most the reverse of the WP practice of avoiding plural titles) fits under case 1 just above, while "Diomed" is more clearly different, and suits case 2.
In contrast, a real tech problem in this case is the three mythological females named "Diomede". What's not immediately obvious, perhaps, is that they share a short page, one of the relatively rare exceptions to "one topic per page". I

  1. almost renamed Diomede to Diomede (mythology),
  2. started an argument with myself about whether Diomede (mythology) (disambiguation) or Diomede (mythology disambiguation) was the appropriate corresponding Dab to use as a Rdr to Diomede (mythology) (so that the unpiped lk would be visibly a lk to a Dab),
  3. settled instead on Diomede in mythology and Diomede in mythology (disambiguation),
  4. griped some about the undesirability of making the user lk from one Dab to another, when they haven't made a mistake (which would "justify" their bearing that burden), and decided that the only thing really problematic about Diomede is that the three portions of it were not addressable, and
  5. put in section hdgs within Diomede, to support the piped section lks above, one for each of the three.

That was all about the technical issues of knowing what MOSDAB is trying to rule out, and finding markup that would fit into what is left.
(In contrast, but at the risk of blundering into the non-tech issues that i'm so far trying to avoid, it occurs to me that what you wrote to Abtract on the article-talk page could hint at a problem at least as subtle (and IMO non-wiki- or WP-technical) as "How do you say 'Buddha may be: ...' without, for instance, taking the PoV that there are (or maybe there are) such things as Bodhisattvas?" That would be "non-tech" problem where IMO my opinion would be much less valuable than in a technically tough problems like the three women.)
If that's no help to you, ask me another question, and let's see where it takes us.
--Jerzy•t 07:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] One more option for Buddha

Perhaps the utility that you recognize as lost from the split of Buddha into Buddha and Buddha (disambiguation) can be redressed by incorporating the relevant links from the dab back into the base name article (having them in both places) -- in a "See also" section, or "Notable groups", or some other, better section header named by someone familiar with it. As long as it's not an article and a disambiguation page. It's certainly not the goal of separating dab pages from the articles to reduce the effectiveness of the articles left behind. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus

I'm going to put this lk to CONEXCEPT on the talk:Buddha page, when i stop being completely distracted from that topic. I'm distracting myself from that state if distraction long enuf to mention it to you first (and give myself a placemark to bring me back to figuring out how to put the lk there). I didn't want to end up posting there w/o the small courtesy to you of acknowledging that it is in response to your concerns about the overriding of the (local) consensus to dispense (as i perceive it) with the limitations of WP:MOSDAB. I won't try to word (at least at the moment) what i'd call the negative implications for you of CONEXCEPT. I hope, tho, that there's at least a small positive side to your becoming aware of it: I have comfortably tolerating the bypassing of the prior local consensus; others have perhaps simply tacitly dismissed that consensus. That may, in light of this lk, seem to you less like chaos and aggressiveness, and more like progress toward integrating the insights that led to the local consensus into a larger-scale consensus.
For my part, happening to run across CONEXCEPT (in finding the right lk to use for "consensus" in another, much more mop-and-bucket, situation) was confirmation of what i believed in my gut:

  • that WP can't function solely on the basis of per-article consensuses (consenses?),
  • that it wouldn't really intend to try to, and
  • thus that even the claim that a local consensus conforms to the letter or spirit of a wider consensus-based decision remains subject to challenge.

I hope you already understood that i was not simply "talking out of two sides of my mouth" earlier on. But i think this should make clearer how it could be, that i thought what i have said in this matter is of one piece.
Thanks for your commitment to working this out, and i hope you'll continue finding it worth your efforts. (And sorry i haven't kept up since my last edit on the subject; i'll try to get back on track soon.)
--Jerzy•t 22:46, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
You replied:

Hi Jerzy - thanks for the note. Honestly, I'm not sure I follow what you say. Is there something in WP:MOSDAB that would overrule the WP Buddhism group's consensus to make Buddha a dab page? As I tried to broach on Talk:Buddha, I can understand one saying that the consensually agreed upon Buddha page needed to be modified to comply more with WP:MOSDAB; but, to move the dab to Buddha (disambiguation) (which was previously a redirect) and to leave a problemmatic prose statement on Buddha seems to me to be violating WP:CONSENSUS without meeting any of the conditions of WP:CONEXCEPT. Is there an error in this reasoning? Perhaps I am missing your point? I hope you are doing well, Larry Rosenfeld
(talk) 06:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

_ _ My point was that we cannot preserve the state of Buddha that that consensus produced, bcz it included an aspect that violated the years-old consensus against prose in dabs, and i was trying to clarify for you why i rv'd when the change was made w/o discussion (and IIRC w/o even a substantive ed-summ), but not again when the same or a very similar change was made and defended.
_ _ The point you make (and i've copied above) is one i hadn't weighed; i think you're saying that whatever the status of the hybridization was, MoSDab is about Dab structure, not abt the much more nuanced question of whether the Dab should reside at the suffixed or plain title. And -- you may or not have noted this -- i urged elsewhere that the Dab be at Buddha and the prose be at another Buddha-related title, like Buddha and buddhas (just as my notion of the most straightforward of a variety of titles).
_ _ Even so, i think it is reasonable to presume (probably even after the relevant portion of the consensus has been accurately restated in the current discussion, freeing those interested from the usually herculean task of separating consensus from the discussion that produces it) that the process of arriving at consensus is contingent: that it depends on the beliefs and interests and personalities of those arriving at it, and crucially, on the options that were considered as candidates. Unless the discussion was incredibly analytical (was an attorney involved? [wink]), i would assume "all bets are off" when it turns out that the specific Dab arrived at is unacceptable. The discussants agreed that Buddha should be a hybrid Dab, and believed that would be accepted, so probably they believed (even if they said they were separately deciding "should the Dab be 'Buddha'?" and "should the dab include prose?") that they didn't need to make a choice between "'Buddha' should be a Dab" and "'Buddha' should include prose". You could offer an argument that they shouldn't have agreed to it in the form they did, unless they were sure that the apparently unanticipated restriction was irrelevant, but even individuals (let alone groups) don't make decisions that way; if you doubt me, do some reading on the trolley problem. (Yes, there can be non-paradoxical analyses of it, but for most people it's just plain astonishing.)
_ _ So i urge dropping the previous-consensus argument, and directly attacking the idea that Buddha should be an article with that prose. I think that is a bad idea, and i think others will agree after discussion. But i think focusing on the at least in some degree obsolete consensus distracts attention from the "anhistorical" arguments against it, and delays a new consensus that is probably accessible.
--Jerzy•t 08:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pali Canon

I've deleted the mention of the alternative Sinhalese transcript, as inspection shows it's not complete. Can you confirm that the alternative Thai version is free, ie the login does not reqire payment? Peter jackson (talk) 08:28, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:PaliCanonSamanaViews

Just noticed this, & thought I'd mention here that the Canon isn't consistent in which views it ascribes to which teacher. I can find some refs on this, but meanwhile you might like to think about how to deal with this. Peter jackson (talk) 08:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

See MLDB 1279f & CDB 1096 for a start. Peter jackson (talk) 10:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll have to have a detailed look at this sometime when I have time. I can't remember where I originally came across this point, & it may well be that, when you analyse it in detail, the information you've selected may be entirely correct. This isn't a topic I want to spend a lot of time on at present. I was simply alerting you to issues so you could then do some research on them yourself as this seemed to be mainly your topic. Peter jackson (talk) 08:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

You might try looking up the teachers &/or rare words in search engines of the Canon to find everything it has to say. Peter jackson (talk) 15:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Skandha additions

> Hi Peaceful5 - Could you help educate me on the basis for your recent additions to the Skandha article? I'm guessing
> that we're working perhaps from different traditions. (For instance, among translators with whom I'm familiar, I only
> recollect — and my recollections are frequently faulty — Thanissaro Bhikkhu using "discrimination" for, I think,
> pañña, but not sañña. "Compositional factors" sounds familiar but I can't rightly place it.) Any help you can provide
> would be appreciated. Thanks again for your thoughtful efforts! Larry Rosenfeld
> (talk) 12:37, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Dear Larry, I added the translations I'm most familiar with to aid other people who use the same language. I study in a Tibetan Vajrayana tradition. Here are some sources that use this translation.[1] [2] [3] [4].

In general, discrimination means the ability to discern one thing from another. One definition of the aggregate of discrimination is "a mental factor that functions to apprehend the uncommon signs of an object ... and thereby to distinguish it from other objects." (Understanding the Mind. Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang, Tharpa Publications) Peaceful5 (talk) 16:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Samyutta Nikaya

Are you sure about that? The BJT printed edn has 54 (as correctly stated by Bodhi). Peter jackson (talk) 09:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)