Hi Chris,
--- "christine_forsyth <cforsyth@...>"
Would

> most people be willing and able to 'hear' a message
> phrased in
> language they wouldn't allow in their own home?
> [Is it possible that your idea of 'conventional'
> could mean someone
> else's 'slang' or 'unacceptable'].

Consider the simile the Buddha uses comparing sense
pleasures to leprosy. Consider all the contemplations
of foulness and impurities of the body. There's the
instruction to the disciples to eat food for
sustenance only, as parents crossing a desert would
eat the flesh of their only child, only to survive,
not for enjoyment or entertainment value. These are
pretty extreme similes that would shock the
sensibilities of most worldlings, no matter if the
language was cloaked in civility or used in a
colloquial way.
The Buddha and enlightened arahants would not
gratuitously give hard-to-swallow teachings or use
colloquialism carelessly, but I believe there would be
occasions where they would give the modern equivalent
of a sermon on the shit-sandwich.

Thus have I heard: At one time, the blessed one was
visiting the recluse Frank and some of his friends
from the Pali group. Encompassing their minds with his
own, he knew that most of them, except for Frank,
clung to erroneous notions of pure speech...

"Friends, sense pleasures are a shit-sandwich."
...
Delighted by this rousing talk, 500 disciples attained
the stainless eye of dhamma.

-fk


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