Dear Yong Peng and all Dhamma Friends:
                
                   Thank you with your dedications in Pali discussion Gruop .  

May the Triple Gem be with you always.

Peace with Metta

Mingkong                


________________________________
From: Ong Yong Peng <palismith@...>
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, July 22, 2011 9:49 AM
Subject: [Pali] Thank you - 10 years of Pali on the Web!


 
Dear friends,

I am writing this message to commemorate 10 years of the Pali Discussion Group. Our group started on July 22, 2001. The first email was titled "Launch of Pali Discussion Group".

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pali/messages/4

Over the decade, we have seen the group grows into the current size of 1200+ members. We have covered several Pali grammar texts, and worked through various passages from the Tipitaka. We are proud to see many members sharing their knowledge on Pali and Tipitaka online. Our discussions, now available in the message archive, serve as a valuable resource to students of Pali and Tipitaka.

This mailing list is non-sectarian, and does not seek to represent any particular Buddhist sect, organisation, temple, center or individual. It is opened to all, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike, who takes interest in either the Pali language, or the teachings of the Buddha and his immediate disciples as recorded in the Pali Tipitaka, or both. We do not intend nor do we pretend to appeal to emotions and religious piety. Converting people to Buddhism is not our business.

Our group is Pali-focus and Nikaya-centric. Our discussions focus on developing our knowledge of the Pali language, including grammar and syntax, style and prosody, semantics and pragmatics, and morphology. All these with the specific objective of being able to read and understand correctly the Pali passages of the Sutta Pitaka (Nikayas). We are less concerned with phonetics in Pali, or how Pali words are pronounced.

The clearly stated objectives provide us a basic framework to conduct our discussions efficiently and effectively. This framework does not restrict us from extending into other parts of the Pali canon and post-canonical works. It also allows us to expand our discussions as necessary, and tap into other areas of human knowledge beyond the Tipitaka while not digressing. This is where members of various backgrounds come in to contribute and share on languages (e.g. Sanskrit, Latin), history, philosophy, religion, arts, anthropology, sociology and even science and technology.

We have had a good ten years of growth, and we shall look forward to another good ten years, where we will focus on progress, consolidation, and renewal. These will take place across all the three main platforms: 1. the Pali mailing list, 2. our new Facebook page, 3. tipitaka.net website. I will only briefly discuss my plans for the mailing list. For the next few months and years, the focus will be primarily on progress. We will proceed with our ongoing exercises: NPC3 and Warder, and our sutta translation exercises of AN, and learn through these exercises. I look forward to your contribution to our future discussions.

On this joyful occasion, let me thank all members, past, present and future, for your support and contribution. I also thank Yahoo! for providing the great FREE service.

Thank you all, and may the blessings of the Triple Gem be with you always.

With metta,
Yong Peng.




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