Talk:Schools of Buddhism

message: I added a division between the eighteen original schools and their descendents and the mahayana schools. Not sure why this wasn't there before. Also, at some point someone should try to figure out the proper chronology for the Mahayana schools to match the proper chronology of the eighteen. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 21:55, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This was discussed on Talk:Buddhism recently.  Certain individuals, who shall remain somewhat nameless, object to the concept of a distinction between "Nikaya" and "Mahayana" schools.  So, as an experiment, I removed those categories from this article.  Our co-conspirator Pratyeka, it now appears, also objects to the distinction between sutric and tantric schools.  This leaves open the question: how best, then, to organize this article? - Nat Krause 12:01, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: My opinion is that a heirarchy whereby schools are grouped by primary influence, such as we had some time ago, was the best system.  This is because the relationships between schools are complex, and the useful information that we can convey in a nested list is sort of limited.  At least if we use 'primary influence' as a basis for a list, most of the time we are showing some sort of useful relationship.  Breaking the list in to parts achieves little, I believe that such lists belong on 'Sutric Buddhism', 'Tantric Buddhism', 'Theravada' and 'Mahayana' pages.  prat 13:57, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Wait, what are "primary influences"? Also, while I don't see the utility of the sutric/tantric division (I don't see that Mahayana and Nikaya are that much more like each other than they are like tantric buddhism), the Nikaya/Mahayana one is very important, as it reflects a watershed in terms of methodology, rhetoric, linguistics, metaphysics, etc. It's true that there are complex relationships, and even that some Nikaya/whatever schools have close genetic ties with the Mahayana, and it's also true that there are some Mahayana schools/thinkers with possibly closer ties to the canonical literature than the Mahayana sutras (Nagarjuna, say), that complexity can and should be explained in words, rather than represented by smushing all the schools together. (Someday, Wikipedia will have an inbuilt markup for flow charts and family trees, and that will, of course, open up whole new avenues of exploration) More information is much better than less information. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 19:47, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: An attempt to revive this discussion: basically, I agree with Kukkurovaca's points.  What are "primary influences" as distinct from concepts like Mahayana, the Nikayas, Vajrayanic tantrism, etc.?  If we can come up with a better lay-out for this page, great, let's do it.  So far, I think the (more-or-less standard) Nikaya (vulgarly a.k.a. Hinayana)-Mahayana-Vajrayana division is preferably to any suggestions I've seen so far. - Nat Krause 13:57, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nikaya/Mahayana division 

message: The first sentence of the article on Jodo Shinshu seems to have become corrupted. Can anyone work out what it is supposed to say? Shantavira 17:00, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: edit query

message: I took out the alternative classification of Mahayana schools as either Yogacara or Madhyamika. For one thing, it failed to actually classify everything, despite claiming that they could be classified. The source cited was Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, not exactly a widely-respected Buddhist scholar. - Nat Krause 04:28, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed some material

message: Some comments on edits to the additions of an anonymous contributor lately. Essentially, I think it's good to have a listing of the different groupings within Theravada, although I have no strong feelings about whether those are listed here or on the Theravada page (note that there are a lot of subgroupings of every school and subschool, not all of which can be included here). I do think we should draw a clear line to avoid listing personal movements associated with one figure (such as "tradition of Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta"); that's just too much information.
In any event, Theravada definitely falls under the rubric of "Nikaya schools" as we are using the term here, so it should not be its own section. Also, I suspect Theravadins themselves would be somewhat offended at the idea of Theravada "schools", since they see themselves as all one school ("orthodoxy"). I have made it "Theravada orders" and turned it into a subsection.
I also restored the East Asian Vinaya, Jojitsu, and Kusha schools that were removed by anonymous with the explanation "These schools were not nikaya schools; much later and outside India. thus: removed." I realize that there are different definitions of what "Nikaya schools" means, but the usage that has so far been standard on Wikipedia has nothing to do with being early or being in India. Modern Theravada isn't early or in India either, but it's still a Nikaya school.
I removed the numbers that anonymous added to the Nikaya schools. This seems like an uncomfortable shoehorn to try to use on the article, since there are supposed to be 18 schools, but we actually list 22 Indian schools and 5 East Asian ones. I also removed the notes about the "later names" of Sthaviravāda—I don't think it is kosher to identify Sthaviravāda with Theravada and Vibhajyavāda. Likewise, for the identification of Pudgalavada and Sammitiya (although, I don't really know much about that, so somebody correct me if I'm wrong).
One additional thing: I noticed that, all along, we've been listing several schools, including the Dharmaguptaka, as subdivisions of Theravada. I could be wrong, but this seems fishy. So, until someone wants to change it back, I moved the affected schools up one notch, making them subdivisions of Vibhajyavāda instead. - Nat Krause 06:33, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: June 20 edits

message: Mikkyo doesn't count as a school of Buddhism, I should think. It's more a general term than anything particularly Buddhism-related. Even if we understand it to refer specifically to Shingon or Tendai, those are already listed. It seems redundant.
Theli 93 07:03, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the reason for the presence of Mikkyo on the list (which I might have added, I can't remember) is to have a general category to include both Shingon and Tendai under Vajrayana (Shingon, by the way, is not listed elsewhere). I do agree that the current arrangement is problematic, though, because Shingon, at least, is not exclusively a Japanese phenomenon, but emerges from earlier Chinese Vajrayana. - Nat Krause 03:58, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mikkyo 

message: I plan to go through and double check the accuracy of our "family tree" of schools using Charles Muller's Digital Dictionary of Buddhism as my main source. Fair warning. - Nat Krause(Talk!) 23:48, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revising 

message: It would be easyer to navigate this page if it had a chart similar to that of the table in the Christian denomination page. --72.144.171.185 20:31, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've created a Word chart of major living branches of Buddhism. Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't seem to be able to upload anything as elementary as Word, & I don't seem to have the facilities for anything more complicated. If anyone's interested in translating or adapting it, I can email it. Peter jackson (talk) 15:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A chart 

message: The German WP redirects from :de:Yogacara to :de:Vijnanavada and says Vijñānavāda is also called Yogācāra, whereas this English WP's article lists them separately.
If they are indeed the same thing, the German :de:Vijnanavada and the English Yogacara should have interlanguage links to each other, and this list should be changed. Wikipeditor 11:05, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vijñānavāda = Yogācāra? 

message: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanistic_Buddhism
Dhammapal (talk) 08:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Humanistic Buddhism Mahayana School 

message: User:Kemrin added the following today:
:Atteroterra Buddhism: A diminutive school of Buddhism born in America in 2008. Originally referring to persons who become Buddhist, but have no available Sangha or Buddhist role models, and so pour over the teachings of Buddhism mostly on their own, grasping for whatever enlightenment they can manage. This school was created by one such person who after years of studying Buddhism independently, found that they didn't fit into any school of Buddhism, and so created this school to describe their own personal beliefs. Atteroterra means wasteland, the name Wasteland Buddhist was chosen because the original member felt as though they were wandering through a spiritual wasteland when they was searching for a Buddhist community to join.
Just to give it the benefit of the doubt, given that it has no citaions, I googled "atteroterra" and found zero matches.  So, uncited, unknown, this material will be deleted momentarily.  If someone has a serious citation for this (e.g., per WP:RS) or can otherwise prove its appropriateness for this WP article (see WP:NOTE), please add such information here before (or at least in tandem with) re-instating this material.  Thanks so much, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 23:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atteroterra 

message: What is the definition of this? Most of those listed are new denominations, which isn't a problem, but some are movements within existing denominations. How is it decided what to include here? Many, if not most, scholars would classify all modernized/Westernized forms of Buddhism, including the entirety of Western Buddhism, as new movements. Peter jackson (talk) 10:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Buddhist movements 

message: Is anyone able to add some information on the major differences that distinguish the schools of Buddhism? Is it particular beliefs? Practices? Purely organisational/administrative? Were they produced by historic schisms, or merely by modern attempts of classification? Cesiumfrog (talk) 05:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  differences 

message: ...from the phrase "culturally-dynamic pseudo-psychological method of self-improvement". Actually this whole phrase seems to be a sneer but the "pseudo" took it over the top.
--174.7.25.37 (talk) 17:45, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed the qualification "pseudo"... 

message: Could someone review and clarify the last sentence of the second paragraph. It currently reads:
"The most common classification among scholars is threefold, with Mahāyāna itself between the traditional Mahāyāna teachings, and the Vajrayāna teachings which emphasize esotericism"
What exactly is meant by the fragment "...with Mahayana itself between..."?
Is it something like "...with Mahayana itself sitting between..." or "...with Mahayana itself occupying a position between..."? If that is indeed the intended sense then the comma after "...Mahayana teachings" is inappropriate. If that is *not* the intended sense, then what is?
:Generally unintelligible. The author was probably trying to get at the observation that both the so-called Mahayana branch and the so-called Vajrayana branch are in fact enthusiastic proponents of Mahayana. – Greg Pandatshang (talk) 16:04, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification please -- Mahayana ? 

message: Can someone replace the nonsensical map? India can not be grey. DenisRS (talk) 19:19, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It isn't all grey, Kashmir area and Northeast India has Northern Buddhist Orange on it. What else do you suggest? Javierfv1212 19:14, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article has the weirdest Buddhism map distribution; India has no major Buddhism school? 

message: Immediately below the table of contents the page says "In contemporary Buddhist studies, modern Buddhism is often divided into three major branches, traditions or categories" - then there are four items in the list below! 
Can someone reconcile?
--Aupward (talk) 17:06, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  How Many Traditions