Dear Piya and friends,

yes, let us be more friendly and accomodating to each other. As
everyone of us is at a different level of efficiency at managing
Pali, we should allow everyone to progress at his own pace. This is
why I encourage different threads for different levels.

I can't really say much about the subscription and participation of
the group. I do not do much of promotion, except for the time when
the list was first started, and listing Tipitaka.net on some of the
major portals and search engines such as Yahoo! The rest I leave it
to the word of mouth. I'm sure if someone find this mailing list
worth their time, they will join and participate. After all, this is
not commercial, and I do not rely on it to make a living.

Pali is not an easy language, especially if a person knows only
English (or even both English and Chinese as in my case). So, it
takes a while to get acquainted with the cases, noun and pronoun
declensions and conjugations. Furthermore, it will most likely be
theravada buddhists who are more interested to learn Pali so as to
read the Tipitaka. Pali may be considered a language with little
commercial or social value. To us, it still retains its religious or
literal value, and that's all. And, even for theravada buddhists,
most will not appreciate the value of reading the Tipitaka in Pali,
but would rather read it in another language. And it is not my
intention to change their views. To me, it will be a lifetime
aspiration, devotion and commitment to learn and read Pali texts.
That, I believe, is too appalling to many people. Many feel
intimidated and discouraged about learning Pali, some may not even
read the Tipitaka in the language they know, let alone reading it in
Pali. Some are satisfied with chanting and meditation. Some are happy
to read books and attend siminars without going deeply into the ocean
of Buddhavacana.

Frankly speaking, I am very satisfied with what we have achieved so
far. We have built up a good foundation, which I believe will help us
make better progress in the future.

I have been doing some (solo) brainstorming recently, a mental
activity I fairly enjoy when I am alone. The Pali Day by Day series
is one of the items I have come up with. I have always wanted to
complete the Pali Primer in my own effort and move on to the other
texts, but my last two attempts were unsuccessful due to poor time
management. So, I have come up with this "Day by Day" concept to
motivate myself and others who are in the same position to venture on
with a simple strategy.

It is never easy to study Pali on your own. And the purpose of this
group is to make it easier and more enjoyable to study and practise
Pali. Besides "Pali Day by Day", I have come up with many other items
in the agenda, of which I will introduce two over the next few days
and a third one in the near future. So stay tuned... :)

metta,
Yong Peng

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Piya Tan wrote:
> I wonder why the unsubscription rate of this website is so high and
its living participants just a handful: can we make some special
effort to be more friendly.
>
> One way is not to throw or thump the Tipitaka at one another, which
probably would scare many prospective seekers.
>
> I have we do not end up squabbling like biblical fundamentalists
over words, when this website provides such wonderful opportunities
to go above ourselves and learn from others, besides trying to teach
them.