--- Ken Smith <kennethleson@...> wrote:

> "Non pali related dhamma spam?" Can the dhamma be
> spam? or an English translation of
> the Dhammapada be unrelated to pali?
>

To answer your challenge, yes, and yes.
spam: Unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial
nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing
lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail.

Unsolicited: yep.
Multiple mail lists: yep.
Indiscriminately sent with regularity: yep. Look
through the archive. Rough estimate of about 1 long
english sutta excerpt post per day, two weeks worth.
Did not respond to my first gentle comment on this
spamming last week: This indicates to me some
combination of possible rudeness, lack of mindfulness,
lack of sensitivity and discrimination in determining
which buddhist email lists to spam/bulk mail.
list charter: pali related posts. Excerpted english
sutta verses not accompanied by pali terms which they
correspond to and bulk mailed indiscriminately to
several buddhist lists is not pali related. I'm fairly
certain of that.

Here's an example to illustrate my point. Imagine if a
buddhist missionary were to go door to door and
verbally recite the posts in question word for word.
Would you consider that solicited or unsolicited?
Indiscriminant or discriminating? Not only is it
annoying, it's also wrong speech.

Right speech is truthful, beneficial, spoken at the
right time and right place, with right view and right
attitude, with intent to benefit the listener. The
listener is unlikely to benefit from the incomparable
dhamma if it is force fed and overwhelming in length.
Maybe in one of the deva realms where life spans and
patience is long. The human realm has micro attention
spans. One can not absorb all of that juicy dhamma in
one burst.

Conclusions:
1) even the sublime dhamma correctly expounded can be
spam and/or wrong speech
2) the string of posts in question, despite being
magnificent sublime dhamma, has been promulgated in a
way that exactly matches the definition of spam.
3) This list, in the year or so I've been on it, has
relatively low traffic and a very polite tolerance for
off topic tangents. There is a conscientious effort
among the list members to keep it on track and pali
related. Unfortunately I'm not one of the polite or
patient listmembers gifted with gentle speech. I made
one effort to be semi gentle and polite, when that
elicited no response, I switched to the direct and
brutally Frank mode. Sorry, I gotta be me, despite
anatta.

-fk


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