I understand your concern here is to keep the discussion polite.
Reviewing the post, I imagine you would have preferred I had left out
the:
"With all the best wishes for you personally, this has got to be
either a thoughtless statement on your part or an outright pernicious
belief that you should let go of, that is, your statement that:
"There are nama and rupa and we cannot escape them"
and the closing:
"It just comes down to what I would call a discouraging word."
That would have left:
"What is your understanding of the goal of what the Buddha taught is
if it isn't to escape nama and rupa?"
And that would most likely have been a better way to go, all things
considered, so if Nina will accept a retraction I would re-state the
post:
Nina:
You say: "There are nama and rupa and we cannot escape them"
In reference to that I ask: "What is your understanding of the goal
of what the Buddha taught is if it isn't to escape nama and rupa?"
Now if I am not mistaken, Nina is no idiot, and she sees exactly that
my intent is in this attempt to enter into debate with her:
1. It is for the sake of pointing out by way of analysis of the
response how it was a statement made without thought or was a
pernicious belief held onto by her.
2. It is for the sake of pointing out to those who are just learning
how such a view is not Dhamma, (it's not even realistic in ordinary
terms) and that it is one of our duties in our concern for the
preservation of Dhamma to point out what is and what is not Dhamma.
It is a matter of judgment, in my judgment, as to whether it is less
blunt to be blunt and get the cards out on the table and by that
point out the purposes of raising the issue or to be what appears to
me to be excessively circumspect and risk loss of the point
altogether while having gained nothing in terms of what Nina (and
anyone else thinking about the matter) understands to be the intent.
I actually fall on the side of being more circumspect and have been
working on that issue in my posts; it goes against my upbringing and
perception of what does and what does not constitute the best way for
an individual to hear that he is dead wrong about something, but it
is definately a better way when considering my own peace of mind and
the hassles of dealing with misunderstanding my intentions.
The other issue here is: since such statements as the one made by
Nina here constitute a 'blunt' attack on many people's belief systems
(within the Dhamma) (sort of my parallel to 'there are women
present') shouldn't policy be just as thorough in coming down on such
as on coming down on poorly constructed reaction to such? Equal
treatment to all according to the same standard is one of the four
basics for developing friendships.