Dear Yong Peng,

Most people know you have made great sacrifices for this website: I am not
blaming you or anyone here.

My point simply is this: we need more people like you and John Kelly, open,
gentle, generous, accomodating.

I don't mind if this website has only the 2-3 of us if we are the only ones
interested in what this website is about. It's just that as we grow older,
sometimes it becomes more difficult to communicate with others: certain
ideas get fossilized in our heads. The sad thing is that this is only a
symptom of darker things in a person.

Yong Peng, let the problem solve itself.

Good news is I'm about 2/3 through the trilingual Mahasatipatthana Sutta.

Sukhi.

P.

----- Original Message -----
From: <ypong001@...>
To: <Pali@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2003 10:44 PM
Subject: [Pali] Re: Friendliness


> 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.
>
>
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