# Talk:Faith in Buddhism

In this and this edit summary JimRenge challenges whether the sections on Millenarianism and Refuge as a political choice are relevant enough to the subject. I will be starting a discussion about this in the GA Review, since it pertains to improving the article's focus. (Focus is part of GA criteria.) See above for the transcluded version, or if you want to join in, go to the GA review.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 12:49, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Farang Rak Tham, thank you for your explanations [1].
1. The text in the "Millenarianism" section does not show why Buddhist "Millenarianism is relevant to the subject of faith" [in Buddhism].
2. The claim that Dalits convert to Buddhism "without actually having faith" may be legitimate but it lacks high quality sources which provide and discuss the evidence. Do opposing views exist? The "Refuge as a political choice" section does not explain the role of faith in Navayana.  JimRenge (talk) 22:00, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Answered above, in GA assessment.--Farang Rak Tham (talk) 16:33, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I have checked the images in the article Faith in Buddhism, and I have added tags where necessary. I think it is okay now, though I am not an expert on copyright.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 13:55, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Our expert is Nikkimaria. This is for peer review, going for FAC. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:15, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Whenever you're showing something three-dimensional, you need to know whether the country of origin has freedom of panorama, and if no you must include a tag for the original work as well as the photo. Also, when you're showing something two-dimensional, under US copyright law the photographer gets no copyright – it is all the original author. So for example the photographer has no right to release File:Manjusri_Painted.jpg, it depends on the wishes of the artist. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:28, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, Nikkimaria. I'll recheck and try to fix.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 15:00, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Not directly related to Faith in Buddhism, but related to the freedom of panorama: Nikkimaria, would you say a relief like File:Sariputra_and_Maudgalyayana_become_disciples_of_Buddha_Roundel_31_buddha_ivory_tusk.jpg falls under freedom of panorama in India? I am uncertain whether it is considered 2d or 3d.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 19:54, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Pending an answer to my question above, I'd also like to state that I checked the article Faith in Buddhism and found one image with no copyright of the original author, as you already mentioned, and three images from countries with limited freedom of panorama. One of these was uploaded by a user that has retired, and can therefore not be asked about it. I have therefore removed it. Two other images involve statues that might have been recently built, and I am checking with the uploaders when they were built now. This concerns the images File:Maitreya_Buddha.jpg and File:Seiryô-ji Buddhist Temple - Statue of Hônen.jpg. So... to be continued.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 21:51, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
What do you think of copying this conversation to the article talk? - I'll archive soon, trying to keep no more than 50 messages. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:55, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Done, and continued there.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 22:05, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, I have now removed the image of Maitreya as well. According to this article, the statue was only recently built.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 22:05, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
I have moved the conversation about the relief, not related to this Wiki article, to Talk:Maudgalyayana#Image of relief.
I think I have now removed all problematic images from the wiki article here. Nikkimaria, please check again if it passes for FA with regard to images and copyright.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 22:45, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Need a location for 九天禅院_释迦牟尼佛.jpg and Buddha_Kopf.jpg to determine, and a translated source for Daisetsu_Teitarō_Suzuki_photographed_by_Shigeru_Tamura.jpg. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:38, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, I added locations.
Do i need to have an official permission from the German retreat center to depict their Buddha sculpture on commons:File:Buddha_Kopf.jpg?
The url given at commons:File:Daisetsu_Teitarō_Suzuki_photographed_by_Shigeru_Tamura.jpg is no longer accessible. What qualification must the new url have, since the copyright of the original Japanese photograph has lapsed anyway?
No.
It should reliably verify the original source. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:19, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 original source The original person who uploaded the first ever historical file? I have no clue what you are talking about. Lots of brief responses in a row. I am sure that you are really trying to help me, but there is a lot of jargon and know-how. I'll read up about copyright later, if I have time. That maybe more useful than this conversation. Thanks anyway.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 08:59, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
The uploader in this case is not important, because they are not the copyright holder. You have a tag that claims the work is in the public domain for one of three reasons - you ideally want a source that verifies whichever of those three reasons is believed to apply here. For example, if the reason is because it was published before 1958,  the source should verify that. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:58, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
I was not able to trace publication information, as most of the information about the photographer is in Japanese. The uploader did specify the title of a book which contains the pictures, called 現代日本の百人（1953年刊）. This book can be found on Google Books, but it cannot be searched. Let me know whether this is in anyway helpful, or if you have other tips to trace the information. If not, I will remove this image as well.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 10:25, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
Er, Nikkimaria, shall we wrap this up? Then you will be no longer bothered by me. To be deleted or not to be deleted, that is the question...--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 22:45, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
Okay. The book title will work if we have nothing else - you could potentially try a TinEye search to track down an alternate source, but it's workable without that. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:03, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
I tried Tineye,but couldn't find anything useful. Thanks though.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 21:44, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

I've been studying Pure Land lately and stumbled into this article. The pure land section is mostly good but I am seeing some mistakes or strangely worded statements there. I already made some changes and will try to improve a little more later. Here are some examples of what I noticed and changed:

I changed some of the phrasing here to make use of the usual terms that are used in the scholarship - "other-power" and "self-power" are the standard terms, not "external power" for example.
Sukhāvatī is not the Sanskrit for "Pure land", Sukhāvatī is one of the many pure lands, I disambiguated this.
Shandao did not emphasize "reciting mantras". He taught nianfo. Nianfo is not a mantra in the classic sense.
"There seems to have been a paradox in Pure Land faith from the start," - no, there was no "paradox", there were just different people with different opinions. Some people emphasized self power, other teachers (Shandao) emphasized "other power". I changed this wording which makes it sound like Pure land was contradictory or something.
"To further complicate matters, apart from the mainstream lay devotee Pure Land Buddhism, monastic-oriented schools also existed" - this is confusing, the real divide was not between lay and monastic, but between the more exclusivist "Jodo" (Pure Land) Kamakura Buddhism and the older more eclectic schools like Tendai. I changed this passage to explain this.
using terms like "cultic" to describe Mahayana  while presenting early buddhism and theravada as rationalistic - this is a bigger problem, since early buddhist schools also included devotional elements towards a buddha that was seen as transcendent (lokottaravada etc) but at least we can remove words like "cultic".
I also noticed a little bias against Shinran and Shin Buddhism in there under the Japan section. I think I will work to reword some of this to make it sound less like it is passing judgment on Shinran's views. 
For example, I just removed the idea that Shinran took Honen's teaching "to the extreme". In what way is it "extreme"? This is already passing judgement on this highly influential thinker. The wikipedia should keep to a more neutral tone.
Overall the article is good, but there are some things that need to be rephrased or reworked, the author was clearly not expert in Asian Mahayana. Javier F.V. 21:46, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Javierfv1212 Many of your edits are very useful, but please keep drawing from sources. There are no authors on Wikipedia, as you are aware, just people who use sources.--Farang Rak Tham  (Talk) 17:27, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes I plan on coming back to this article at some point, just have too many projects in the works right now. As always, thanks for all your contribution to wiki! Javier F.V. 20:08, 29 December 2024 (UTC)