Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Buddhism/Archive 1

message: I don't know where to post it. Can someone knowledgeable about Sanskrit reconstruct the original name of the Prince of Liang from the Chinese transcription 把匝剌瓦爾密 (ba-za-la-wa-er-mi)? He is a Mongol prince, and like other imperial members, he had a very Buddhist name (Tibetan or Sanskrit). I think 把匝剌 must be "vajra" but I don't know what wa-er-mi (varmi?) means. --Nanshu 01:51, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mongol prince 

message: In case you are interested. --Juan Muslim 06:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion]]- [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Religion|Talk]] 

message: Hi all. I hope you know about Portal:Buddhism. It is being discussed whether the portal should be deleted because it doesn't satisfy certain requirements, because not much work has been done on it. Please see the discussion here. I request you to please contribute and make the portal survive. Thanks. deeptrivia (talk) 04:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiportal 

message: Please comment: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Religion#interreligious --Striver 05:13, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion]] 

message: Meditation is currently nominated on WP:IDRIVE. If you want to see it improved and could help us bring it up to featured standard, please vote for it here! --Fenice 08:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvement drive 

message: Please visit this template I'm working on to go at the bottom of all of the major religious pages as a way to facilitate comparative religion research.  Leave your comments on its talk page.  Thanks! --Mareino 01:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comparative Religions Template 

message: Please put on important articles. deeptrivia (talk) 17:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{[[:Template:Buddhism portal|Buddhism portal]]}} 

message: This article is a stub. There's a long history of Buddhism in Afghanistan. Please take a look. deeptrivia (talk) 03:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Buddhism in Afghanistan]] 

message: Place is a mess.  I tried cleaning some but it's so big.--Dangerous-Boy 11:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  every think about organizing the buddhism cat? 

message: Please fill the Buddhist Philosophy section with more details. I think we'll need to restrict it to Buddhist philosophy developed in India. deeptrivia (talk) 15:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be a quite arbitrary & artificial restriction. Peter jackson 15:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Template:Indian Philosophy]] 

message: Hi, i am starting a project to create a new wiki for buddhists. please sign your name on my userpage if you wish to help. will only create site if enough people are interested. Pure inuyasha 23:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikibuddhist. 

message: Wow! This is a quiet corner of wikipedia. I was wondering if we can all work together in getting Portal:Buddhism the featured portal status. deeptrivia (talk) 04:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Portal:Buddhism]] 

message: I've recently been updating the article on Fornication, and I'm interested to learn about the Buddhist perspective, which i've left space for. Is it possible for someone here to write a paragraph or two?? A J Hay 07:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A place to start might be Maurice Walshe's "Buddhism and Sex" BPS Wheel article posted on accesstoinsight.org at: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/walshe/wheel225.html.  (Walshe is probably most famous for his translation of the Digha Nikaya.)  [It's on my to-read list but I figured, given its author, publisher and hosting website, it's probably pretty good :-) ] LarryR 00:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fornication 

message: Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team for Wikipedia 1.0 would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in a small CD release due to their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 0.5 and later versions.  Hopefully it will help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please add to the Buddhism WikiProject article table any articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist automatically for you, please contact us.  Please feel free to post your suggestions right here.  Thanks! Walkerma 06:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0 

message: I stumbled across this article by accident and found it to be very problematic with regards to sourcing, POV, grammar, etc. I made a few attempts to fix some obvious problems but a great deal of work remains just to meet Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. It's even possible this article may need to be deleted; I just don't know enough about Buddhism. My edits were purely from the viewpoint of what appeared to violate Wikipedia rules and guidelines. I don't have the time or knowledge to keep working on this.
I also noticed that the article's author had a history of submitting other problematic material (for instance American Buddha Online Library).
This article needs a review by someone familiar with the topic. I have left some additional comments on the article's talk page.</br>
Thanks,</br>
--A. B. 14:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: FYI, I just noticed another article, Ngor, linked to the Phende article that seems to share the same style and the same problems.--A. B. 18:42, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help needed with problematic article ([[Phende]]) 

message: Just maybe five minutes ago I decided I was a Buddhist. So I would like to join the WikiProject. How might I do this? Zazaban 05:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How do I join. 

message: Hi, regarding the category Buddhist myths: If I may say so, for me, the word mythical is very close to fairy tales and fantasy; when things fall in that category, I would not call them Buddhism. There are however aspect like you mentioned that are difficult for ordinary people to directly experience - but so is the backside of the moon. All in all, Buddhist mythology is for me almost a contradiction in terms. 
Regarding a page for people in Buddhism: who needs that, and do you want to add a few, dozens, or hundreds of names? Of course Buddhist Teachers is a very valid sectionrudy 11:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree with you about :Category:Buddhist mythology. I have long maintained that it should only be applied to fairy tales and such that are in some way related to Buddhism.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 18:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Couple of questions 

message: I came across over 700 links to this organization, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. The site has a ton of ads but on the other hand, it has content (and a Wikipedia article). 
Normally, such an ad-intensive site with so many links gets attention at WikiProject Spam for further investigation. Even if it's not spam, many links may often get deleted as not meeting the external links guideline. I've left a note at WikiProject Spam asking others to look at some of these and see what they think. 
Even some non-profit organizations will add dozens of links to Wikipedia since links in Wikipedia are heavily weighted in Google's page ranking systems. (If interested, see the article on Spamdexing for more on this).
You can see all the links by going to this this "Search web links" page. I encourage you to look at Wikipedia's external links guideline then look at the links in the articles you normally watch. Also, if you don't mind, please also weigh in at WikiProject Spam with your opinions. If you see links to pages that you don't think add additional value beyond the content already in an article, feel free to delete them, but please don't go mindlessly deleting dozens of links. (Per WP:EL, links that don't add additional value should be deleted but that doesn't necessarily mean they're "spam").
Thanks for your help and for providing some second opinions. --A. B. 17:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  religioustolerance dot org 

message: I am crossposting this to WikiProject Tibetan Buddhism, but I thought I might get more response here. I was looking at random articles today and came across Lerab Ling, whose text struck me as something that could have been lifted directly from a promotional brochure. Following the links, I discovered Sogyal Rinpoche and The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, both of which are even more promotional.  The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is exceptionally bad; the first words of the article describe the book as "an acclaimed spiritual masterpiece," and glowing celebrity reviews are interspersed with statements like, "This jewel of Tibetan wisdom is the definitive spiritual classic for our time." In his article, Sogyal Rinpoche is described as "one of the most renowned teachers of our time" and "the author of the highly-acclaimed and ground breaking book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I have no idea how much influence Lerab Ling, Sogyal Rinpoche, and his book really have in Tibetan Buddhism, so I was hoping that someone more familiar with the topic could take a look at these articles and evaluate the truth of these glowing statements. In the meantime, I've marked all three with  tags. Thanks. - AdelaMae (talk - contribs) 18:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice catches AdelaMae!  A minor tangent, if I may: If The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is possibly going to be deleted, should it perhaps be subsequently made into a #REDIRECT for Bardo_Thodol? LarryR 22:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Lerab Ling]] and related articles 

message: The current organization there is abit muddled, and needs some discussing how to deal with. A general proposal for cleaning it up is posted at Category talk:Religious leaders#Organization proposal, and more input would be great. It doesn't address the issue of Religious leaders/religious workers/religious figures, but that is another issue that exists. Badbilltucker 21:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Religious leaders]] 

message: I have noted that this project does not yet engage in assessment. I am a member of WikiProject Religion, which does engage in assessments. I was wondering if this project would have any objections to the Religion project setting up its banner in a way similar to WikiProject Australia, WikiProject Military history, and others, which have the "parent" banner on top with the assessment criteria and a section below indicating which particular projects have specific interest in the article. I could set up the Religion banner in a way to accomplish this. However, given the complexity involved, I would not want to do so and have things changed back later. Please inform me if this arrangement would be to your satisfaction or not, so I can know how to proceed. Thank you. Badbilltucker 14:55, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for doing this Badbill. NinaEliza (talk • contribs • [ logs]) 22:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assessment 

message: We need to start renaming or redirecting some articles of both people and concepts for clarity and common usage. If someone goes by a nickname, for example, it's most appropriate to have a redirect of that nickname. This is particularly true for honorifics. 
For example, Nichiren is often called Nichiren Daishonin by his followers. A redirect to Nichiren would be in order (if it has not been done already). I propose we start a list of articles that need these redirects/renamings. Larry has kindly offered to help, and he has a lot of energy.
On a side note, the one time I looked at Nichiren, it didn't include his writings on the game Go, and a host of other things. I'm entreating others to look into it - I'm too cl
ose to the topic. NinaEliza (talk • contribs • [ logs]) 22:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As NinaEliza indicates, I do second this effort.  The thing that's troubled me lately (and I've perpetrated this problem myself multiple times) is the non-English-naming of articles on Buddhist terms and concepts, such as Sravaka ("disciple"), Upasaka ("lay follower"??), Upadana ("clinging") and even my beloved Skandha ("aggregate"?).  Admittedly, this makes sense for some concepts (e.g., Nirvana, buddha), but I think it would be of benefit to have lesser-known terms have their "Main" articles using English titles.  Any thoughts?  Am I embarrassing myself yet again by rehashing something that was already discussed, decided and implement?  (If so, humble apologies yet again :-( ).  Metta, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 00:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Belated response. THe general WP preference is for English. However, some terms don't have a standard translation, in which case the original might be commoner than any one translation. Peter jackson 15:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point.  Guess it's tricky.  Relatedly, User:munge pointed out on Talk:Sravaka that using an English term for a non-English word also causes the loss of textual context opening the article up for a variety of unforeseen additions. Okay, guess I won't pursue this after all :-) Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaming some articles 

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards 

message: The group indicated above was recently revitalized for, among other things, the purpose of working on those articles whose content is such that the article does not fall within the scope of any particular denomination. To most effectively do this, however, we would benefit greatly if there were at least one member from this Project working on those articles. On that basis, I would encourage and welcome any member of this Project willing to work on those articles to join the Religion WikiProject. Thank you. Badbilltucker 22:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion]] 

message: It has been proposed elsewhere that Japanese Buddhism be counted as a separate specific entity, particularly because of the inclusion of many ideas and practices which seem to have been used in Shinto as well. Would the members of this project object if articles relating specifically and only to Japanese Buddhism were to be overseen by either the Shinto or Japanese mythology WikiProject as well, given its status as a kind of syncretion of Buddhism and Shinto/Japanese mythology? Badbilltucker 20:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japanese Buddhism 

message: Buddhist art has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.
Green451 18:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buddhist art up for featured article review 

message: An editor has proposed deleting the article Buddhist Images. Fg2 01:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed deletion: Buddhist Images 

message: I'd like to remind people that many computers will not display some of the diacritic letters used for Pali and Sanskrit. Therefore I recommend both pointed and unpointed versions be given at first occurrence. For a different reason we should give both Pinyin & WG, & preferably tones & characters as well. As an aside, is it correct for us to be using Pinyin as primary? Last I heard most scholars used WG, but it's not my field so I may be out of date. Peter jackson 09:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration 

message: Just to draw attention to a problem. In Burma, a monk may have various names. Thus Nanabhivamsa, Maha Dhamma Kyinthan & (1st) Maungdaung Sayadaw are the same. Peter jackson 09:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monastic naming conventions 

message: Please discuss this in a discussion here--Sefringle 03:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creating a guideline that applies to all religous articles 

message: Hello. I recently found Mandarava in the backlog of uncategorized articles. As I don't know anything about Buddhism, I'm afraid the categories I put might be incorrect and I'd appreciate it if someone from the project could take a look. Thanks. Pascal.Tesson 23:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mandarava 

message: There is a new WikiProject task force proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Inter-religious content that is being proposed to deal specifically with articles whose content relates to several religious traditions. Any editors interested in joining such a group would be more than welcome to indicate their interest there. John Carter 15:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New project proposal 

message: Hi there. I think we should change to using Pali for the names of the Buddha's disciples, such as Sariputta, Mahamoggallana instead of Sanskrit. I believe this is appropraite, because Theravada seems to put a lot more emphasis on the disciples of the Buddha and their ineractions with the Buddha, rather than eg, Mahayana, which focuses more on Avalokiteshvara, Ksitigarbha, among other things. And since Theravada used Pali, I would recommend Pali. I tend to find that Mahayana books tend not to discuss the disciples as much, so Pali usage seems predominant. Comments? Blnguyen  (bananabucket) 05:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point. As I undersand it, WP policy is to use the form commonest in English. Given the point you make, that might well be Pali. Peter jackson 10:26, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am undecided and on the fence. It seems to me that the convention in speaking about Buddhism in English is to use Sanskrit, unless the subject is associated very strongly in with Theravada to the exclusion of Mahayana. But the names of the major disciples seem to be a borderline case, since they clearly have a more central position in Theravada thought, but, on the other hand, they are not absent from Mahayana, either. Some are more important in Mahayana than others, too. I find it difficult to reach a clear conclusion.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 03:58, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pali names for disciples 

message: Eastern religion is currently being improved. Please help bring this central topic article up to standard. Vassyana 03:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improving article 

message: The Buddhist ethics article is in very rough shape; it needs to be rewritten by someone with enough background in the topic to give it some sort of focus, not to mention the fact that it is missing a lot of references and occasionally doing a poor job of identifying when different branches of Buddhism are in disagreement over a topic.  Any additions and clarifications would be an improvement.  --Clay Collier 23:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buddhist ethics 

message: I have listed the following articles from the "Buddhist Mythology category" at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Religion#List_of_articles_where_mythology_cats_are_potentially_problematic
*Shambhala - because this kingdom is mentioned in the Tantras, sacred scriptures to some sects of Buddhism with many devout believers. Scholars may disagree as to its historic identity, but since we are not supposed to side with one POV against another, we should distinguish between sacred scriptures that significant numbers believe in, and "mythology" which is not neutral when applied to current beliefs of any given world view.  "Mythology" should be reserved for writings that are no longer widely believed in the world by anyone, like the works of Greek or Norse mythology. 
*Kinnara - again, this is mentioned in the Lotus Sutra, a sacred text to millions of people, and is part of the belief structure of some sects of Buddhism, whether we like it or not.  Thus, we should avoid sticking a pejorative label on it like "mythology", because that is a POV not shared by those who have this belief. Regards, Blockinblox 13:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Mythology" a point-of-view? 

message: I've just revised The Great Compassion Mantra, can someone go and check it.
Blind Man Walking 01:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Nīlakantha dhāranī]] 

message: Laszlo Forizs, a Hungarian translator of Buddhist literature, is up for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laszlo Forizs. The AfD could possibly use expertise from someone familiar with Buddhism, since many of us already participating in the discussion there are far from expert on the topic.
On a related note, have you considered setting up and watching a Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting page for Buddhism? The other major religions have one and it would be a convenient place to leave such notifications. On the other hand, I don't think it would do much good for it to be set up by a disinterested outsider such as myself, and possibly Buddhism attracts few enough AfDs that it wouldn't be worth your time...just a suggestion, anyway. —David Eppstein 05:18, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Laszlo Forizs 

message: It was proposed in September 2006 that Zen Teacher/Zen Master be merged into Zen, but no discussion was made of it. If you are interested, please discuss here. JohnnyMrNinja 17:55, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zen merger 

message: Greco-Buddhism has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here..Blnguyen  (bananabucket) 05:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Greco-Buddhism]] FAR 

message: According to the general WP guidelines, names of articles should follow the common English-language usage. This will not necessarily be Pinyin. Peter jackson 16:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pinyin 

message: I know I'm not in the project, but it seems like Bodhi should be rated as start class. --MKnight9989 13:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bodhi 

message: See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dharmic religion and Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_September_2#Category:Dharmic_religions . You may be interested to vote or leave your comments there. Andries 17:45, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dharmic religion]] 

message: I'd like to get some more eyes and brains involved in this article- there are a number of problems with it regarding accurately depicting the variety of perspectives on the relationship between Buddhism & and Hinduism, as well as a recent dispute over how to incorporate views of Buddhism that emphasize its decent from the Hindu tradition.  Myself, Arrow740, and Rebel XTi have been going round and round for a bit, and I believe we're at the point where repeated reverting is blocking progress on the article.  --Clay Collier 08:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Buddhism and Hinduism]] 

message: I am in the process of trying to assess many of the articles relating to Buddhism, and at least placing the banners on the others. I have also followed the procedure I have seen elsewhere where any article which is linked to as "see also: X" in the main Buddhism article is accorded "Top" importance to the project. I think the way importance is indicated on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Assessment page might work here as well. In any event it would probably be a good idea if a more knowledgable member of the project were to try to maybe finish the "Top" and "High" importance categories. Also, I was wondering whether, given the widely disparate nature of many of the types of Buddhism, whether it might be a good idea to create specific task forces which related to the larger "groupings" in Buddhism. Anyway, just letting you know. John Carter 20:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for all your efforts in this neglected area of Buddhism on WP, John.  It looks like the Wikiproject Buddhism template does not currently display importance assessments- if someone out there is a Template markup guru and wants to adapt the current template, it would make it easier to see at a glance how articles are being assessed.  --Clay Collier 21:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've at least placed the project tag on all the articles. Unfortunately, there were several articles that seemed to me to fall on the Stub-Start or Start-B borderline, or were such that I personally didn't know enough about them one way or another to even attempt an assessment. In those cases, they weren't assessed. Many of these articles are on the Start-B cusp, and it might be worth the effort of a more informed member of the project to take a shot at assessing them. John Carter 14:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assessment 

message: These should be listed in the narrowest appropriate article (see how I've done it in Pali Canon). This means everything occurs just once, avoiding clutter, & also avoids the necessity for personal opinions on which books are good/useful/important/..., so is NPOV. Peter jackson 08:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anthologies 

message: IMHO the article on Prayer, section Buddhism , while not bad, could  use some tweaking. I believe that others are more competent to do this work than I am. -- 201.19.77.39 09:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Prayer]] in Buddhism 

message: I added a "See also" link to Samanera in the article Shramana. We may want to merge Samanera into Shramana. Discussion? -- 201.19.77.39 13:03, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They're not the same thing. A samanera is a Buddhist novice, not a full monk. A shramana is roughly any Indian monk-type person of any religion. Peter jackson 08:47, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Peter, no merge. Greetings, Sacca 09:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for clarification. -- 201.19.77.39 13:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added link to to [[Samanera]] in the article [[Shramana]]. Merge? 

message: Bhikkhu currently has a good deal of information about the Vajrayana, and little about the Theravada and (other) Mahayana. -- 201.19.77.39 13:46, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Bhikkhu]] needs more info about [[Theravada]] and [[Mahayana]] 

message: I know of the following scholarly theories:
* standard model, followed by most scholars: Buddhism started off unified, but split into 2 schools in the 4th or 3rd century BC, & later into more; large overlap of vinaya & sutta between schools largely due to inheritance from early period; for the early period i know of 2 subtheories:
** Gombrich & a few others: the above shared material is substantially the teaching of the Buddha
** Nakamura (Indian Buddhism, Hirakata City, Japan, 1980; reprinted Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1987, 1989), Ui & some other Japanese, & perhaps some Westerners (? Gomez, Vetter, Bronkhorst): Atthaka, Parayana & little or nothing else go back to the Buddha's lifetime; after his death Buddhism evolved into "fairly different" form found in shared material above
* Schopen (Journal of the Pali Text Society, vol XVI, p 105) argues that the standard model is roughly the opposite of the truth: in fact, he argues, Buddhism started off extremely diverse & was gradually levelled off over centuries, eventually coalescing into a small number of fairly similar organized schools (apparently in the 2nd century AD, though he doesn't say so explicitly)
So lots of stuff in lots of articles is theory, not fact. Also, the concept of POV fork may be relevant. Peter jackson 10:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early Buddhism 

message: I am curious about conversions to Buddhism. From what I hear, there are no conversions. One simply chooses to believe, and to follow the path the philosophy sets out, and is therefore a Buddhist. I am curious if this is true, and how it plays out across the various branches of Buddhism. This could be a great thing to include in the Buddhism article, or elsewhere. Thanks. LordAmeth 22:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In what way does that differ from conversion? Peter jackson 09:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It differs in the sense that the Abrahamic religions, and likely many others, require formal conversion ceremonies, and can have pretty serious requirements attached to them. One does not become a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim by simply waking up one day and deciding that one now believes in X, Y, and Z; one has to speak with the priest, minister, rabbi, or imam and go through a whole series of steps towards formally officially becoming a member of that faith. This is why I ask about Buddhist conversion practices - are there rituals? are there requirements that must be fulfilled before being considered a member of the faith? do these differ by sect/branch, or by country? ... It would be an interesting thing to add to the article if there is anything to it. LordAmeth 22:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is aritual of taking the refuges, which is in the Buddhism article. Peter jackson 10:24, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To become a buddhist in Theravada tradition requires: undertaking the 5 precepts, and taking the tree refuges (refuge in the three jewels). Then, one is a follower of Buddha's Dhamma. The Mahayana tradition requires additional things, I don't know exactly what, but in early Buddhism it's quite simple. Undertaking this little ceremony can be done in 5 minutes, and the ceremony itself is not terribly important, in the end one's actions are much more important. Many Buddhists cannot handle the 5 precepts, it's too difficult for them so they do only 3 or 4 (no alcohol, no lying are most difficult for many) but they still regard themselves as Buddhists. Greetings, Sacca 09:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: FWIW, Upasaka#Initiation_ceremonies has some new, sparse information, based on Kariyawasam's 1995 text on contemporary Sinhala rituals - Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conversion 

message: Snowlion gives a quote from Rudy Harderwijk, The Four Dignities, "Sometimes the throne of a Buddha is depicted with eight Snowlions on it, in this case, they represent the 8 main Bodhisattva-disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha." Are the "8 main Bodhisattva-disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni" listed anywhere on Wikipedia? -- Writtenonsand 14:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "8 main Bodhisattva-disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni"? 

message: I've added these five images of Seattle's Kadampa Buddhist Temple to Commons, but I don't know enough to definitively identify any of the statues except the one of the Buddha. If someone can help out, please do. Just edit the descriptions on Commons directly, no need to reply here (although here would be a good place to discuss if you have guesses but don't know definitively, or conversely if you can say you've got it covered.) Thanks in advance. - Jmabel | Talk 05:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help sought on identifying statues 

message: IMHO the article Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche is quite good but can be improved to "even better". 
:1) Article needs specific cites for various statements.
:2) We could use stub articles for many redlinks relating to Tibetan Buddhism.
:3) Article contains various "peacock terms" which need to be made NPOV.
:4) Article contains several assertions of more-or-less miraculous events which need to be carefully cited and phrased in a NPOV style.
:5) Article may be slightly more detailed than is necessary / appropriate for Wikipedia.
Thanks. -- Writtenonsand 00:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche]] needs your help 

message: I recently edited the article Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and I see that we need an article on the concept of 
"empowerment" in Tibetan Buddhism. (E.g., "he received the Rinchen Tangyud empowerments", "Jangchub Dorje gave him empowerments for the Red Tara cycle".)  I personally have no idea what this term means, and would like very much to know. The existing article Empowerment is no help at all. I don't even know what would be the best title for our new article. Can anybody start a stub on this? Thanks. -- Writtenonsand 13:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wang (Tibetan Buddhism)??? -- Writtenonsand 01:02, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I started that a couple of days ago. Lung is another part of it. Our articles on Tibetan Buddhist practice are not very good currently. Secretlondon 01:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Empowerments give someone permission to perform a certain tantric ritual. Secretlondon 01:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Empowerment in [[Tibetan Buddhism]] 

message: Religion_and_sexuality#Buddhism_and_sexuality could use review and possible cleanup. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 22:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Religion_and_sexuality#Buddhism_and_sexuality]] 

message: We need an article at Criticism of Buddhism parallel to those on all other major religions. 
Criticism of Buddhism currently has no content and formerly simply redirected to the general article Criticism of religion. 
Maybe not everybody will be interested in working on this, but IMHO if any religion would be comfortable with NPOV self-criticism, it would be Buddhism.  :-) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:50, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Criticism of Buddhism]] needed: Requested article: Only major religion without a "criticism" page. 

message: Anybody who doesn't currently do so should check on Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Culture_and_fine_arts#Buddhism from time to time. We should be trying to create redirects for the easy and mis-spelled ones, and the people of this WikiProject are obviously the ones more likely to have a handle on the tough ones. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Culture_and_fine_arts#Buddhism]] 

message: Three marks of existence needs some work.
* Could use some general cleanup.
* Has no cites! - "Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed."
According to our infobox, the Three Marks of Existence is a "Key Concept" of Buddhism. 
And now I see that "Key Concept" links to Buddhist terms and concepts, but that article does not mention Three marks of existence!!
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 22:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Three marks of existence]] needs your help 

message: I have proposed a merge of these three articles. Please see Talk:Eastern philosophy#Merger proposal. Zenwhat (talk) 01:45, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal between [[Indian religion]], [[Eastern religion]], and [[Eastern philosophy]] 

message: I don't think every Zen Centre in the world is notable - agree? Loads have been added to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Buddhism/Requested_articles, which also seems to duplicate things in the to-do list at the bottom of the project page. Secretlondon (talk) 23:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  Per WP:ORG, a Zen Center or other temple would only be notable if it is nationally/internationally recognized (such as Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, and/or written about in reliable third-party sources (San Francisco Zen Center.  Chapters of an umbrella organization at best warrant a mention in an article on the association or denomination.  I was wondering about things like some of the Pure Land churches in California that have histories going back over 100 years- some of them have been recognized as 'the oldest' this or that in an area and have some history associated with them- the San Jose Buddhist Church in San Jose's Japantown might fall into this category.  As a general rule though, random centers, practice groups, temples, etc., probably wouldn't pass muster, as very few of them have anything written about them.  --Clay Collier (talk) 00:23, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Generally, yes, we don't need an article on each Buddhist center in the western world. There's no need to proliferate them. That said, a lot of such centers have some sort of marginal claim to fame, viz "one of the first Xs in such-and-such area", or "the first major X is such-and-such area". So, I can see where there would be a good number of marginal cases. A more specific problem is that very few such Buddhist groups have anything written about them in reliable sources, which makes it difficult for us to write about them even if they are deemed notable. That said, I would feel like the grinch trying to delete an article with well-written information about a regionally-important center.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 20:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability 

message: There was a vote and move last fall already, but afterwards we had a very constructive discussion in which we gathered many more facts, and the name Buddha (general) looks less desirable now. We feel it is time to vote again, and we want this to be the final vote, so please take a look at the Talk:Buddha (general)#Table of options, which lists the results of our discussion in a nutshell. — Sebastian 07:44, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please vote on how to name the [[Buddha (general)]] article 

message: I see that the article on Kate is included in this project. Is that accurate?  Wwwhatsup (talk) 16:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone ahead and removed the tag. Wwwhatsup (talk) 15:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Kate Moss]] 

message: Halo! Losar is currenting happening, how may I ensure that it is flagged as a current event? Is there a News Wiki article that this Wikipedia article can interwiki? How may I progress this? Is there anything else you recommend?
Blessings in the mindstream
B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 05:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Losar 

message: Can somebody fix this? I'm not particularly knowledgeable, so I'm not exactly sure what should be done.
*Brahmajala Sutra
*Brahmajala Sutta
With the edits I've done to it already, I probably screwed something up, somewhere. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brahmajala sutta \ Brahmajala sutra 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Zen Buddhism in the United States 

message: This article has a tag indicating its affiliation to this project, but is almost entirely about Hindu tantras, with only a few passing references to Buddhist ones. Peter jackson (talk) 12:02, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Tantras]] 

message: This article, which appears to relate to the concept of "tulpa" in Tibetan Buddhism has been mentioned on the Fringe Theories noticeboard and is tagged for multiple issues. It seems to me that good sources are an urgent priority for it. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Thoughtform]] 

message: I ran across Zen Center of Syracuse and tagged it for speedy deletion for failing to provide any claims of notability.  The creator of the article says that WikiProject Buddhism is planning on creating an article on every Zen Center and temple in the world.  Please don't.  Every temple in the world is no more notable than every Christian church in the world.  Existence is not notability.  Corvus cornixtalk 23:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It would appear that the creator is referencing this list of possible articles. I must say, it is stupidly exhaustive. If each and every one of those Zen Centres can assert it's own notability, then go ahead. If not, then I echo Corvux cornix: please don't. TalkIslander 00:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  There was a discussion on just this subject that is now on the archive page.  The consensus was not to add temples or centers that did not have specific claims of notability.  --Clay Collier (talk) 02:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The list referred to by Islander was never meant to provide justification for single articles for each center. That article, Zen Buddhism in the United States, is far away from completion and I merely included them all so that I would know possible areas to research. I linked them all on the chance that some would be deserving of their own article, providing a quick way to start the article(s) off. Incidentally, The Zen Center of Syracuse is, imo, notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia. Being that it is led by the first female Rinzai roshi in the USA and is now well referenced, there is no reason this article should face deletion. (Mind meal (talk) 05:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Every Zen Center/temple in the world? 

message: There are a number of articles being discussed on the Fringe Theory Noticeboard that could use the attention of someone who is well-versed in Tibetan Buddhism.  The articles, most by a single author, appear to mix Tibetan Buddhist, theosophist, and new-age ideas in a way that makes it quite difficult to tell what is going on, and whether or not the entire business is just original research, or actually has a kernel of factual content to it.  There are some basic questions about whether or not something is a legitimate/common translation of some terms used in Tibetan Buddhism.  --Clay Collier (talk) 02:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help Needed: Thoughtform et. al. 

message: I created this article Monkey mind.
If anyone could expand this article with any information you know of -- the historical development of the term, its use in various literature, etc.., that would be great.
Also, I need to know the Japanese for this term. I know it is shin'en-iba, but I don't know what the Japanese kanji is.
Thanks! ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monkey mind. 

message: There is currently a motion to delete List of Zen centers in the United States at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Zen centers in the United States. Interested parties are welcome to vote. (Mind meal (talk) 09:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  AFD of List of Zen centers in the United States 

message: There is a proposal to convert the draft infobox template  into a template that can be used for all places of worship. We would like your views on whether you think this is a good idea, and if you are able to help identify parameters that would be relevant to the religion that your WikiProject deals with. Do join the discussion taking place at "Template talk:Infobox church". — Cheers, JackLee –talk–</span> 03:39, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expand {{tl|Infobox church/sandbox}} to cover all places of worship? 

message: Per article Mindstream. I haven't encountered this term before, and I don't find any independent sources online that use it with the same meaning as this article.
Can we produce any cites to show that this term is not a neologism (Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms) or original research (Wikipedia:No original research)? 
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 20:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The term pops up a lot on Google.  On Buddhanet, the term is used as well.  In discussions with Buddhists, I've heard this term before, though it's mostly used by Tibetan Buddhists. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 22:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Mindstream]]. Neologism / Original research? 

message: The link is to an inactive page. Should it still be here? Peter jackson (talk) 11:12, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming conventions 

message: Would anyone be interested in starting a WikiProject Tibet collaboration project? I think with a bit of devoted effort we could bring an article to Featured Article status once every two months or so. I would suggest that, given the current unrest in the region, that we start with a relatively non-controversial topic. I propose Trisong Detsen. Who's with me? --Gimme danger (talk) 06:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be interested.  Don't have any source material for that particular person, but I'm happy to help with copy editing or other things.  --Clay Collier (talk) 00:46, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you! Right now several editors are working on improving History of Tibet, which is in quite a state of disrepair and could use even a cursory copyedit. I'm waiting for some sort of response before going ahead and creating a collaboration page, and you're the only one who's responded so far. --Gimme danger (talk) 23:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Tibet Collaboration 

message: Considering that the three subjects above each have a separate portal devoted to them, would it make sense to create subprojects dealing specifically with those Buddhist traditions? John Carter (talk) 22:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What benefit would this provide, exactly?  Also, the portals that you mentioned were mostly the work of one user, and it's not clear that they are active or being maintained.  --Clay Collier (talk) 00:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it would allow those individuals who are primarily interested in one of those traditions to concentrate their attention on that tradition. Also, it would allow the portals, including the inactive ones, to be much more readily maintained, as it would clarify which articles are directly relevant. John Carter (talk) 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Considering the lack of collaboration in the Buddhist Wikiproject, creating even more -- a Wikiproject for Tibet or sub-projects, would be counterntuitive. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 16:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wasn't thinking so much of different projects, but rather task forces/work groups, probably using the existing Buddhism banner. But you might be right. John Carter (talk) 17:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd agree with Zenwhat; I suspect that creating additional sub-projects would just result in a few more inactive project pages and some make-work banner tagging, and not much else.  There's also a lot of overlap between the proposed sub-projects- very few editors would be interested in Tibetan Buddhism but not Vajrayana and vice-versa (Shingon specialists perhaps being the exception, but there's not a lot of them here.)- and that a more geographic organization would make more sense if sub-projects are necessary.  I'd say if there's a group of editors that feel they need more help coordinating their work but don't want to use the existing project, then that's fine but it doesn't make much sense to create structure that isn't going to be used.  Maybe a post to the talk pages of some of the related articles would help assess if people feel there's a need.  --Clay Collier (talk) 17:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

text: WikiProject Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism already exists as a sub-project of WP:China. I'm attempting to revive this group and would welcome collaborators. --Gimme danger (talk) 17:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subprojects for Mahayana, Tibetan and Vajrayana Buddhism 

message: History of Buddhism has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Marskell (talk) 12:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of Buddhism review 

message: Could some editors from this Wikiproject look at  and the related ANI thread?  There is a lot of POV pushing going on there by people who follow this person's religion.  I don't know a thing in the world Buddhism and wouldn't even know where to begin in fixing it.  The bottom line is that about six accounts were all created on April 17 and have been seeking to turn this article into a devotional theology piece.  They are certainly sockpuppets or meatpuppets and have driven away one good editor.  Some guidance from editors who are familiar with this topic would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you. --B (talk) 04:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Dorje Shugden]] 

message: User:Kester ratcliff has started an article on Buddhist writer David J. Kalupahana. 
(1) Needs work, if anybody's interested.
(2) Is currently titled Kalupahana. Should presumably be titled David Kalupahana, right?
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 04:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Or possibly David J. Kalupahana? Peter jackson (talk) 09:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Names: "the article title should generally be the name by which the subject is most commonly known, [and] the subject's full name should be given in the lead paragraph, if known. Many cultures have a tradition of not using the full name of a person in everyday reference, but the article should start with the complete version."Anybody have any objections to going with David J. Kalupahana?? -- Writtenonsand (talk) 14:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New article on David Kalupahana 

message: Buddhism and Christianity could IMHO use a fair bit of work if anyone's interested. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 17:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I did alert the Christianity project, thinking they'd be interested in sorting out the gross overplaying of fringe theories about alleged Buddhist influence on Christianity, but nobody seems to have responded yet. Peter jackson (talk) 10:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I've now reported the article at WP:FTN. Peter jackson (talk) 10:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Buddhism and Christianity]] needs your help 

message: NPOV dispute. Peter jackson (talk) 13:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  RfC [[Buddhism]] 

message: I see User:Mind meal has been a nominee for the Wheel of Dhamma award since before April 15th. Has there been any discusssion? I certainly agree with the nomination and propose we actually go ahead and give him the WoD. Does anyone disagree? Dakinijones (talk) 11:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wheel of Dhamma award 

message: Currently, 822 of the articles assigned to this project, or 26.3%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of .) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This sounds useful to me. Anyone object to me adding the tag to our project page... or maybe a sub-page would be better? Dakinijones (talk) 19:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles flagged for cleanup 

message: As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level.  The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
*The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.  
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*A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.  
Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at :Category:C-Class_articles.  If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages.  The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles. 
Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme.  This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year.  Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 22:12, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme 

message: Please, if you are interested, let us know what you think on this issue. Some time ago, the page on Yidam was changed into Ishta-deva as part of vajrayana Buddhism. According to some people, like myself, this is an odd title change that only will confuse people to find this page. My point is that in literature, Ishta-deva might mean the same in Sanskrit as Yidam in Tibetan, but nearly nobody uses the Sanskrit term, so if you have an opinion on this, please leave a note on the talk page of Ishta-deva.rudy (talk) 22:38, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ishta-deva, Yidam or meditational deity 

message: We currently have two nominations for User:Mind_meal to receive the Wheel of Dhamma. If anyone would like to make it three, we can actually give him the award. If you'd like to add your name you can do so at Wheel of Dhamma nominations. Dakinijones (talk) 19:25, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any more nominations? 

message: Tibetan Buddhism has been under the domain of Project Tibet. There is currently a suggestion being discussed at Project Tibet that Tibetan Buddhism should be moved to Project Buddhism. Do project Buddhism members agree or disagree? Dakinijones (talk) 14:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Shouldn't it be in both? Peter jackson (talk) 08:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know. Is Zen under Project Japan as well as Project Buddhism? Maybe that would give us an indication? You might want to mention this point to the discussion over at project Tibet Dakinijones (talk) 12:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've always assumed overlap is standard practice. Otherwise we'd be liable to turf wars. Eg Pali Canon is in Buddhism & Religious texts. Whether Zen should be under Japan might depend on whether you include Chan, Son & Thien. Peter jackson (talk) 11:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point... maybe Tibetan Buddhism should also be under Nepal, Bhutan Mongolia and Russia? Like I said, I really have no idea what the usual practice is and no particular opinion either way. Not sure from your response whether Zen is under Japan too or not, is that something you happen to know? I wouldn't even know how to find out. Dakinijones (talk) 20:56, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You can find out what projects an article is affiliated to by looking at the top of its talk page. You might try a sample to see what usual practice is. I think there's a general project coordination page somewhere that may say what the general practice is supposed to be. Peter jackson (talk) 10:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to move Tibtan Buddhism 

message: Hi, everyone. I seek your help to improve Korean temple cuisine that I recently have expand. I mean not just a common begging by beggars, but by monks or nuns as a mean to live and a practice decrees of Buddha. In Korea, it is called takbal (탁발, ), and I found Takuhatsu, named by Japanese pronunciation. However, I'm not sure it is a common English name for the practice. Can you enlighten me on this? Thanks.--Caspian blue (talk) 00:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: How about "alms round"? Peter jackson (talk) 08:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Clay Collier also gave a detailed information on this.--Caspian blue (talk) 11:11, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think a point to remember is that Buddhist monks don't actually beg. That is, they don't ask. They simply stand silently. Peter jackson (talk) 13:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the English name for "begging" in Buddhism? 

message: WikiProject Hawaii would like to collaborate with WikiProject Buddhism on Byodo-In Temple.  If anyone has any interest, please reply here. Viriditas (talk) 09:29, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Byodo-In Temple 

message: Hello, may I ask if this is a notable Buddhist organization. Perhaps you could take a look at this and  Buddha's Light International Association - Philippines. You could reply on WP:PINOY.--Lenticel (talk) 14:12, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Buddha's Light International Association]] 

message: Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations. 
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible. 
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Buddhism 

message: What to do with this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Bawantha
Greetings, Sacca 09:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the problem? This editor appears to do nothing but deal with external links. There's no rule against specialization. If you object to something in particular, say so. Peter jackson (talk) 10:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  external-link-editor 

message: NPOV dispute. Peter jackson (talk) 09:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Talk:Abhidhamma Pitaka#RfC]] 

message: It seems there's no article on this. Bardo says that strictly speaking it's not a correct use of the term, or perhaps it's only 1 use. In any case, the idea exists in East Asian Buddhism as well as Tibetan, so a Tibetan name for a general article on the topic is inappropriate. That leaves Sansrit & English as possibilities. WP policy is to use the commoner name in English usage. Perhaps someone knows what that is. If we find that English is the correct form, we'll have to discuss it with our Christianity colleagues as they already have an article under that title. Peter jackson (talk) 17:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intermediate state 

message: L. Ron Hubbard has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Cirt (talk) 09:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[L. Ron Hubbard]] [[WP:GAR|good article reassessment]] 

message: There is a debate about the content of this article. Frankly I am in over my head and I can't understand what one particular user is talking about. I have added a request for comment to the talk page, and the input of persons with an understanding of different Buddhist philosophies would be very helpful. Click here to comment. Thanks! Beeblebrox (talk) 20:07, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I second Beeblebrox's request. User:B9 hummingbird hovering seems to have put a bunch of work into collecting sources, but they're just cast broadside into the article, and are far too technical and out of context to be encyclopedic. Beeblebrox and I took a stab at a stub, but B9 reverted it claiming that his "scholarly pastiche" was heading toward a "grand synthesis" (the article had gone unchanged for quite some time) and suggesting that our stub only reflected the point of view of the "Gelugpa hegemony". Although I don't think our stub was that bad, I'm happy to admit that it was a start—a stub—and would love to have seen it expanded and deepened—but I'm not convinced reversion was any improvement. In any case, some more comprehensible input from someone who understands the use of this term in Buddhist scholarship (or at least some corroboration on the article's current state) would be helpful. Thanks. /Ninly (talk) 01:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

text: The stub we offered is now archived in my subpages. I'll be happy to incorporate other POVs if someone can point out what's not being represented and what backs it up as a scholarly view. /Ninly (talk) 01:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sentient beings (Buddhism) 

message: That is, Michael Everson. I'm a non-theistic Buddhist. But why is the article about me part of this project? I've encoded scripts used by Buddhists (Tibetan, Tai Tham, Sinhala, Myanmar). Just wondering, really, about the criteria. -- Evertype·✆ 11:56, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like someone tagged the article about you with one of the 'Buddhist people' categories.  Anything with a 'Buddhist Blah' category tends to also get tagged with the 'WikiProject Buddhism' banner on its talk page.  It also looks like anything with the WP:Buddhism banner that was also tagged for 1.0 inclusion was dumped on the project page at some point.  Bureaucracy in action, I suspect.  Really doesn't seem the sort of article that this project would be able to provide any meaningful input for, unless your coming was foretold in some Pali chronicle that we can argue over.  --Clay Collier (talk) 12:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh. Sometimes I think about translating the Dhammapada into Irish. But I'm busy at this stage of my life. I've no objection to the tagging. Just wondered why. -- Evertype·✆ 13:14, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Me 

message: These are some Buddhist articles for deletion, which editors may wish to look at:
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/What the Buddha Taught
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Perfect Mirror
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Dance of 17 Lives
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Children's Past Lives -- Johnfos (talk) 02:53, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles for Deletion 

message: This has just been created by a new editor, can someone please take a look and either fix it or take it to AfD or? Thanks. 08:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Prod tagged it; hopefully won't be contested.  I don't believe there is anything there that isn't already covered in Trikaya. Optionally, someone might consider making a redirect from 'bodies of Buddha' to Trikaya.  --Clay Collier (talk) 08:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Bodies of buddah]] 

message: Looking for some opinions on this one.
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dharma fellowship
--Clay Collier (talk) 00:38, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles for Deletion 

message: What do people think of converting our WikiProject page to a Turnkey Project, which uses a few templates to make WikiProject organization a bit more ergonomic? With the bulk of material the project page has accumulated, I find it a lot less useful and informative than it could be, and the transition may encourage us to fork off some of the longer discussions and subtopics with links from the main project page.
I have already started to piece it together on my subpages – see User:Ninly/WikiProject Buddhism for a very rough idea of how things would look. If we decide to go for it, we can prettify things there and then copy/paste most of it to the actual page. I'm not a template whiz (yet!), but I belong to one WikiProject that has been using Turnkey, and I especially like the looks of WikiProject Anglicanism's adaptation of the templates – they also have some things (Resources and Naming Conventions templates, for instance) that we may find useful.
:Oops, forgot to sign. /Ninly (talk) 19:11, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Go Turnkey? 

message: There is inconsistency in usage in the articles of the various lineage lamas - I've posted at :Template talk:Infobox Buddhist biography with details and initial thoughts on how to fix this. Please take a look and comment. Thanks--22:04, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infoboxes used on Lamas 

message: Subscribed this project to User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription, by transcluding that box to the WikiProject main page. It has to be on the WikiProject main page for it to work - so please don't remove it - thank you! Cirt (talk) 18:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup listing 

message: This portal is currently undergoing a portal peer review. Comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Buddhism/archive1. Cirt (talk) 05:38, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Portal:Buddhism]] 

message: There is a Good Article review going on for Buddhism; initial feedback and comments are available at Talk:Buddhaghosa/GA1.  I was hoping to draw some feedback about the 'Criticism' section of the current article, which consists of a quote from Shravasti Dhammika regarding the postscript to the Visuddhimagga.  First of all, I'm not familiar enough with the work of this monk (he seems to be an Australian writing and working in Singapore) to know if his criticism is notable enough for inclusion in the article.  Second, I was wondering if there are any other notable criticisms that would warrant inclusion, or if any writers have responded to the critique that Shravasti Dhammika puts forth in his book.  --Clay Collier (talk) 01:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The article was passed for GA status.  Thanks to everyone who contributed feedback or made improvements in the article during the GA review.  --Clay Collier (talk) 04:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Buddhaghosa]] 

message: 200px|rightThere is an image of a Buddhist abbot that I have put up for deletion. Someone suggested it be kept for use in an article on the type of robe he is wearing. I ask that people here use this image in some appropriate article(s) so that it may be kept, and I will withdraw the nomination. If it cannot be used, so be it. Thanks! ~ JohnnyMrNinja 08:29, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image question 

message: Hi!  I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate.  This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.
All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group.  If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coordinators' working group 

message: Please note that there are several students presently creating the article, Buddhism and the body as a part of a school project. Any help you might give them or edits you might contribute to this page are graciously welcome. Also, please note that a couple of antagonistic editors have been interfering in these students' work, and so an assistance with this would also be appreciated. Most notably, one editor has requested the page's deletion despite the fact that there is an "under construction" tag on the article and improvements continue to be made. Thank you.Vote Cthulhu (talk) 02:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed the link. Body is (erroneously) in lower case in article title. Can someone fix that?Vote Cthulhu (talk) 14:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Why should it be capitalized? Body is not a proper noun. This form fits the WP:MOS for article names. (See .) Aleta Sing 19:02, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buddhism and the Body - A School Project 

message: Hi all.
I created this article by copying pieces from four different articles together. This said, it needs a major rewrite, cleanup and maybe expansion for some parts. I think there is a great potential in this article. Also some info from the other articles maybe a bit questionable, and needs correction. Please join writing it, bold editing is needed. Siru108 (talk) 07:53, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Sexuality and Buddhism]] 

message: Hello. I'm hoping someone here can help with the page on the Physical characteristics of the Buddha. The 27th secondary characteristic has at various times been given as "He has the strength of 1,000 crore elephants or 100,000 crore men" and "he is a very happy man" by different editors. I've found websites which give both, and also this list which is completely different from the one on Wikipedia. None of the websites I turned up seemed particularly more or less reliable than the others to me, so I'm at a loss as to which is the correct version. Does anyone know an authoritative source? Or are there genuinely multiple versions of the list? Cheers, Olaf Davis (talk) 14:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ten billion elephants? 

message: Is Access to Insight's "dana" copyright compatible with the GFDL? It would be handy, as they are an excellent, scholarly source for Pali Canon sutras and scholarly writings by e.g. Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
From their page on copyright:
. . . You may copy and redistribute any texts from this website, provided that you abide by these two basic principles:
# You may not sell any texts copied or derived from this website.
# You may not alter the content of any texts copied or derived from this website. (You may, however, reformat them — see below).
J B Bell (talk) 22:12, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Pretty sure it isn't.  The non-commercial and non-alteration clauses are both in conflict with the GFDL.  The ATI stuff is fine as a source, but as for direct inclusion into WP, I don't think it's possible.  GFDL requires that the licensee be allowed to alter the text, and that both commercial or non-commercial distribution is possible.  --Clay Collier (talk) 23:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Access to Insight's Copyright 

message: Please check Pings Xiao for neutrality and notability. The Chinese article about him is currently fully protected which gives rise to suspicions. — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 06:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've asked the editor who started the original article to try and address the notability issue that you raised with the prod notice.  It's entirely possible that this guy and his views are very popular in Taiwan without making much of a splash in the English-speaking world, but his Google footprint seems to be minuscule when the specific spellings used in the article are used, and impossible to determine otherwise (using Pinx Xiao, Xiaoping Shi, or Xiao Ping Shi).  There are some pretty odd arguments being made within the article with respect to 'proving' the historicity of the Tathagatagarbha teachings.  --Clay Collier (talk) 08:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pings Xiao 

message: Hi, everyone. We have a DYK event for Buddha's Birthday and Vesak just like events for Christmas or April Fool's day. Buddhism has affected many culture, so I think you guys can create/edit Buddhist articles in upcoming five days. Once you create or five fold expand Buddhist related articles (famous temples, monks, movies, literature, paintings, foods, etc) within 5 days, and then nominate it to the below place. After a review, your article can be featured on the main page. So be hurry if you are interested. :) Thanks.
Template talk:Did you know#Articles created/expanded for Buddha's Birthday (May 2) and Vesak (May 9) --Caspian blue 18:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  DYK for [[Buddha's Birthday]] and [[Vesak]] 

message: I've opened an RfC about a few issues related to the depiction of Dorje Shugden here in that article.  Some input from people familiar with the issue would be helpful, given the controversy surrounding the topic.  --Clay Collier (talk) 01:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dorje Shugden RfC 

message: This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.
We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.
If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Sweeps invitation 

message: User:Mr.Z-man has a new service available to various requesting WikiProjects which gives the project a monthly update of the number of hits on the 1,000 most frequently accessed articles for that project. An example of such a listing can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Popular pages. Would the members of this project be interested in getting such a list for their use? John Carter (talk) 18:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popular pages 

message: I noticed today that there is no article for the Japanese Buddhist deity Taishakuten (帝釈天); nor is it a redirect to something else. Both the articles for Sakra and Indra indicate that they are the same entity as Taishakuten... rather than create a redirect or alter either article, I figure I'll leave it up to the experts.
(While you're at it, the Sakra article has a very narrow South Asian focus. If this is indeed the same entity as Taishakuten, that article needs to be expanded to cover China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia as well.)
Thanks! LordAmeth (talk) 20:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taishakuten 

message: Hi, I just created a page on religious responses to fertility treatment.  I don't know enough to write the Buddhist opinion.  Would someone like to help out?Joe407 (talk) 15:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Religious response to ART]] 

message: I noticed that a sub-section of the Kalama Sutta article recently had a very different tone and content. Notice this version  and compare it with a recent version.  Very different, indeed!
It seems likely that the Faith in Buddhism article could use some work too.
It would be good to have a version that is accurate and makes everybody happy. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 02:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I cut the section in Kalama Sutta; it appears to have been a personal essay or attempt at OR.  Interestingly, that section seems to have begun life as a personal essay in the same vein, but arguing for something of the opposite POV.  --Clay Collier (talk) 06:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: So did someone pop in & decide to "correct" what someone else had written? Peter jackson (talk) 09:39, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup- the original version argued that the skepticism of the Kalama was never meant to apply to the words of the Buddha and emphasized for the importance of faith in practicing the teachings; right here an IP user changed it to argue that even Buddha's teachings were meant to be subject to rigorous skepticism and that external authority has no place in Buddhism.  --Clay Collier (talk) 10:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You can probably find both views in "reliable sources", & probably others. Peter jackson (talk) 10:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Faith in Buddhism, Kalama Sutta needs help 

message: What exactly are these guardian figures over the door of the Sakya Monastery in Seattle supposed to represent? Are they lions? - Jmabel | Talk 03:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be my guess- Snow Lions specifically.  --Clay Collier (talk) 06:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo description help requested 

message: See Outline of Islam.
For instructions, see Wikipedia:Outlines.
Also see WP:WPOOK.
Thank you.
Good luck.
Have fun.
The Transhumanist  00:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I see on looking there that it's just a list of topics. Peter jackson (talk) 09:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like a great idea. Maybe I'll work on it in a couple of days when I'm not so busy. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 02:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Yes, because I am a Theravadin and don't have enough knowledge about Mahayana, so I trust that other users will improve the Mahayana coverage of this article. I apologize if this creates a "massive Theravada bias". eu.stefan (talk) 16:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Islam has an outline in the [[WP:2|OOK]], but Buddhism does not 

message: just add: 
Bodigami (talk) 01:22, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  userbox 

message: The article Third Bardor Tulku Rinpoche has recently been created, and was largely written by one (new) user; I therefore think it would be helpful (in the interests of balance, etc) if others could look it over. I personally don't know enough about the subject; specifically, I would question some of the sources, which may be somewhat self-referential, but I don't know enough about the topic.
Thanks,   Chzz  ►  00:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: On an initial read through, I don't see anything terribly problematic balance/NPOV-wise.  I would want to double check and see if there is any relationship with the Karmapa controversy (since the previous Karmapa is mentioned as one of his teachers), but I don't see any obvious problems.  --Clay Collier (talk) 01:50, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third Bardor Tulku Rinpoche 

message: Eu.stefan, you have done an amazing job on the Outline of Buddhism.  Thank you.  The Transhumanist  22:12, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outline of Buddhism 

message: Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#Coordination of activity. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 19:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Call for editors to help manage religion related content 

message: While patrolling new pages, I came across Thousand-armed Kannon which a new editor started translating from the Japanese article, but then got busy with something else and hasn't been back for a month. I have no idea how best to proceed with this, and I hope someone here will take it under their wing and at least give some context to the article and add it to appropriate categories in the hope that the translator will be back before too long. Thanks. --Derek Andrews (talk) 21:48, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thousand-armed Kannon 

message: Hi. The article List of religious organizations is in need of serious help. It was in an abandoned state and discussed for deletion, however I feel it has strong potential to become a useful list. But it needs lots of help and collaboration. Is someone of you interested? --Cyclopiatalk 23:46, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[List of religious organizations]] 

message: Need help expanding bio, and reassessment of article class.  Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 06:36, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Robina Courtin]] 

message: Hi,
Because dukkha is such a core concept, would it be useful to implement the paragraph below throughout articles on Buddhism, and avoid the traditional "suffering" translation?
From Dukkha, "Meaning," paragraph 2:
``````````````
Although dukkha is often translated as "suffering", its philosophical meaning is more analogous to "disquietude" as in the condition of being disturbed. As such, "suffering" is too narrow a translation with "negative emotional connotations" (Jeffrey Po)[2], which can give the impression that the Buddhist view is one of pessimism, but Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but realistic. Thus in English-language Buddhist literature dukkha is often left untranslated, so as to encompass its full range of meaning. [3][4][5].
````````````
With all respect to the great teachers who have translated dukkha as "suffering" (especially Trungpa Rinpoche), this could be helpful in dealing with this term more precisely.  The suggestion is to replace all instances of "suffering" with the transliterated word itself, dukkha, and include an in-line parenthetical note or footnote to a text similar to above.  The dukkha article should remain as is, since it explains this issue sufficiently. Maybe the translation note could only be given the first time in each article.
EXAMPLE with replacements:
```````````````````````
Skandha
In Buddhist phenomenology and soteriology, the five skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandhas (Pāli) are five "aggregates" which categorize all individual experience, among which there is no "Self" to be found.
In the Theravada tradition, dukkha (unpleasantness, disquiet) arises when one identifies with or otherwise clings to an aggregate; hence, dukkha [footnote] is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates. The Mahayana tradition further puts forth that ultimate freedom is realized by deeply penetrating the nature of all aggregates as intrinsically empty of independent existence.
Outside of Buddhist didactic contexts, "skandha" can mean mass, heap, pile, bundle or tree trunk.[1]
``````````````````````````
What do think?
best, Paul 78.108.170.40 (talk) 14:51, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia isn't supposed to give its own opinions on such things, merely to report what others have said, which is quite a lot of different things. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Dukkha]] in all references 

message: It would seem fantastic that Amidism, the #1 synonym of Pure Land Buddhism in English, could be scrubbed from the article with all its sources and nobody noticed for six months, and yet, and yet... I have tried to restore it, but I think some regulars keeping an eye on Pure Land Buddhism would be useful. 62.147.27.150 (talk) 19:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nobody watching [[Pure Land Buddhism]]? 

message: Can you give me a link for an infobox. Thanks. --Redtigerxyz  Talk  15:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, I think we gots none. Template:Infobox religious building, Template:Infobox religious building/sandbox, and maybe Template:Infobox monastery look to be the closest approximations. John Carter (talk) 18:18, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox for Buddhist temple 

message: Hi folks
I have proposed that the recently-created :Category:Bhikkhu should be deleted through the Categories for discussion process.
Comments from members of this project would be very welcome in the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 January 1#Category:Bhikkhu, where your expertise may help clarify the issues. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Bhikkhu 

message: After a recent request, I added WikiProject Buddhism to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Buddhism/Popular pages.
The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 06:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pageview stats 

message: At Physical characteristics of the Buddha, a group of IP editors has been trying to add this to the article. That's not correct, is it? (I apologize for my cultural cluelessness.) Zagalejo^^^ 05:16, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No it isn't, but then there are loads of other mistakes in both Pali & translation anyway. Peter jackson (talk) 10:55, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Physical characteristics of the Buddha 

message: This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP 1.0 bot announcement 

message: Hello Wikiproject! Currently there is a discussion which will decide whether wikipedia will delete 49,000 articles about a living person without references, here:
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people
Since biographies of living people covers so many topics, many wikiproject topics will be effected.
The two opposing positions which have the most support is:  
# supports the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, User:Jehochman
# opposes the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, except in limited circumstances, User:Collect
Comments are welcome.  Keep in mind that by default, editor's comments are hidden. Simply press edit next to the section to add your comment. 
Please keep in mind that at this point, it seems that editors support deleting unreferenced BLP articles if they are not sourced, so your project may want to source these articles as soon as possible. See the next, message, which may help. 
===Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people===
;List of cleanup articles for your project
If you don't already have Cleanup listings,   Cleanup listings is a bot which collects all tagged unreferenced biographies of living people, plus other lists onto one page in your project. 
It is very easy to add to your project:  simply add a template to a page of your project! Instructions 
A list of examples is here  
;Moving unreferenced blp articles to special "incubation pages" 
If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles that your project covers, to a special "incubation page",  contact me, User talk:Ikip
;Watchlisting all unreferenced articles
If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip
Ikip  08:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for comment on Biographies of living people 

message: ;List of cleanup articles for your project
If you don't already have Cleanup listings,   Cleanup listings is a bot which collects all tagged unreferenced biographies of living people, plus other lists onto one page in your project. 
It is very easy to add to your project:  simply add a template to a page of your project! Instructions 
A list of examples is here  
;Moving unreferenced blp articles to special "incubation pages" 
If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles that your project covers, to a special "incubation page",  contact me, User talk:Ikip
;Watchlisting all unreferenced articles
If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip
Ikip  08:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people

message: There is a newly created article on Glen Ard Abbey, a Buddhist monastery, and it has been listed in WP:AFD - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glen Ard Abbey.
At the moment it is slightly spammy, but I suspect notability could possibly be establised and it could be rescued. Smappy (talk) 02:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Glen Ard Abbey 

message: Master Cheng seems a bit off to me – is this promotional, or just in need of citation? Not sure what's going on, and I don't want to prod it if it's worth improving. The link recently placed on the Zen article (in Dutch?) seems especially odd to me; don't currently have time to follow up. Thoughts? /ninly(talk) 18:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: "is the essence of Satsang, Advaita Vedanta, Yoga and Zen." is obviously someone's opinion, not a fact. Peter jackson (talk) 10:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That particular phrase has since your comment been removed from the article; I've opened a discussion on Talk:Master Cheng. No response so far, but if anyone has input or a suggestion on how to proceed, please contribute. /ninly(talk) 14:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Master Cheng 

message: I have been learning more about WP:RS, WP:V as well as WP:PSTS . In the end, it appears that we (the editors of this page and others) must have consensus over what content is considered to be a reliable source, and therefore who may be considered as authors of RS material.  My opinion on this (which is relevant as a member of the editorial community - and therefore a member of any consensus-making body) is that (and possibly PJ agrees with me here) there are NO reliable sources that we can agree upon for topics with a broad and disparate scope as is found in Buddhism.  I would almost suggest that we author a  WP Policy for Buddhist-related articles which states as much.
The consequences of such would be that (possibly) we do not author anything Buddhist-related as facts  -but instead use named cites within the editorial itself to indicate who says what and where, and let the reader judge.  This would entail that our arguments here (and elsewhere on Buddhism-related articles) would not completely cease  -but they would be about just who's opinions are notable enough to be represented on the article.  So, in my mind, one may argue that Williams (when Williams makes an opinion) could be considered MORE authoritative than Eliot regarding Mahayana Buddhism, just because he is more contemporary, but I would not necessarily discount Eliot at all, if he has something notable and interesting to say; however, I would not accept his (or anyone else's) word as fact, except for what material he writes which would be considered [WP:PS]. Likewise, articles from more recent articles of the JBE could be considered MORE authoritative than Williams, just because they are even more contemporary.  I am not making that claim (I may one day); I am just using an example.  At least we could then spend less time arguing over doctrinal points, and develop some form of reasonable approach to develop some form of criteria that would allow us to agree. Maybe contemporariness is not an issue - but maybe we can agree to make a decision about that one way or another.  Likewise, regarding specific scholars such as Harvey - I believe he is reasonably authoritative regarding Theravada, but he is completely out of his depth regarding the Tibetan traditions. (I firmly believe that any discussion that makes claims that one group of Buddhists (such as the East Asians, Tibetans,  Theravada or any other) have more sway, import, or grasp of the truth is a waste of time here. We are not here to be such judges either). 
This may be considered as somewhat of a U-turn for me, but tbh I am much more interested in finding a degree of stability as well as accuracy for wp:buddhism than just in endlessly arguing.  There are some very  well-taught and well-learned editors here. It is a waste of everyone's time to go round in circles.
I am concerned that if we are unable to reach consensus on just who we consider to be RS (and over just what areas of Buddhism they are RS for), or at least some guidelines on how to make such a judgement as a community, then we will never find any rest regarding Buddhism-related articles.
An important aspect of these guidelines could be (as PJ suggests immediately above) that the order of articles follows a timeline, rather than following any idea of importance - I would instantly agree to that.
 
Am I being ridiculously idealistic?  (20040302 (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Original suggestion

message: :Okay, outside of the last sentence, I'm pretty sure that we are at a good turning point for a new section. 
#We (the editors of Buddhism and related articles) are all acting in good faith, and are wishing to work towards authoring and maintaining exemplar articles for such articles.  
#We are interested in the subject area, and are capable (at least between us) of finding and evaluating source material (when it exists) that meets our needs for the task.
#We are aware that the article(s) may never be synchronous with our personal beliefs or those of others, and must not feel disheartened by that.
#That Buddhism (or any other broad-band subject that covers hundreds of millions of peoples, thousands of years and hundreds cultures) is complex.
We also need to develop
#A means of identifying RS.  Possibly even list regular RS, along with their respective domains of expertise.
#A strategy of hierachialising RS when addressing a specific topic; this isn't about who is more right, but about things like time, generality, and so on (eg see Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources#currency_of_RSs). 
#We could divide content/subjects into HOT/WARM/COLD - according to the level of attention/disagreement they get.  The purpose of this would be to require different levels of attribution for HOT subjects, and far less attribution for COLD ones. If there is no dispute about the phrase "Buddhism is a religion and philosophy", then it is COLD, and (until discussion comes along) doesn't need an attribution to it.
#The structure of the article reflects a timeline, with the earliest stuff at the top. 
Something that begins to go like that gives everyone a GOOD idea about what we have already developed a consensus about.  IE, if we cannot develop a consensus about the article, let's first get a consensus about authoring the article! (20040302 (talk) 20:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: More definite proposal

message: Sources that mention a division of views are to be considered more reliable than those that are unaware of such a division, or only mention one side of that division.
Evidence of division (eg two scholars stating contrary views) maybe mentioned as "Opinion differs regarding..." with proper reference to the division of said scholars. Anything more analytical may be deemed Original Research. It maybe necessary for a consensus to be reached that the two references do indeed indicate a division. (20040302 (talk))
:If I understand right, you're talking about disagreement about whether sources disagree. If some editors think sources contradict each other, it seems reasonable to suppose that some readers will do so too. If an article states both as facts, they will find it odd. This suggests that the default should be "According to". Peter jackson (talk) 10:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no default.  We need to weight the merits of the claim(s) and the corresponding sources.  If we are dealing with majority viewpoints, there's nothing to attribute inline, unless we are referring to a specific opinion or belief. Viriditas (talk) 11:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I'm not clear what you mean here. Peter jackson (talk) 18:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Scholarly division

message: I have opened up a section at WP:NPOV to discuss this. Although my views are well-declared, I do think that some of Peter's arguments are reasonably challenging enough for this issue to be raised more centrally.  My intent is solely to come to some better understanding - you may wish to take part, hence my notification here. (20040302 (talk) 10:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Argumentum ex silentio