Re: moderator's note

Dear Members,

I agree with Lance and Susanne. This is not the forum to be introducing the
topic of the definition of Buddhism. The primary focus of this group is on
anything to do with Pali, especially the language and the texts.

It is apparent that there has been a flood of postings lately. It all
started just over a month ago with DC's post on the English word Pali. I did
a rough check on the numbers and found we're getting close to 200 since Nov.
6 which is unprecedented for this list which normally receives around
200-300 messages for the entire year. I have some suggestions on volume
control.

1) no more than five group message per day.
2) keep to one topic at a time instead of having several threads happening
    at the same time.
3) not to introduce a new thread until after the current one seems to have
     died out or has been put on the back burner until later.
4) keep individual messages short and to the point as much as possible. This
     is because most of us are busy and don't have the time to read long
     messages.

I hope these are reasonable suggestions and by all means contact me off-list
if you disagree or have some other suggestion(s).

Best wishes,

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: "'Susanne Ott' ottsusanne@... [palistudy]"
<palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: December 8, 2014 8:41 AM
Subject: Aw: [palistudy] Definition of Buddhism





Dear D.C.,

There are many possible responses to your query.

1. Provide you with links to literature to read about the "What is Buddhism"
debate(s). I would assume that this kind of debate began to blossom in the
19th century with Orientalist scholarship and the emerge of the subject
"comparative religion" (Max Müller etc.). Many scholars have discussed about
emic and etic (Pike) views of Buddhism. Maybe the discussion about
introducing the term "Buddhist theology" would be an interesting reading for
you, too.

2. My personal reaction to your question was a big big sigh (kind of "Oh no!
Not again!"), and I appreciated Lance Cousin's answer. My view is also that
this is outside the scope of this list. I have a lot of work to do, but I do
not want to miss the mails of the palistudy yahoogroup; if there are too
many mails it becomes a burden to read through all of them, and the only
solution is to try to keep to the core topics around Pali language. I think
there are other online networks where discussions and questions about more
general aspects of Buddhism are appreciated.

3. As Jim said before, we have different ways of looking at things. Your
epistemological approach could be categorized as positivistic, you believe
in the possibility of using defined terms as in mathematics. I did my A
levels in mechanical and electrical engineering and mathematics, I used to
study 3 years of mathematics and physics at university (before "a year
abroad" in Thailand made me change the direction of my study), my working
surrounding for working on my dissertation about Pali-Thai translations of
the Tipitaka is an institute and a campus full of particle physicists, so I
know what you are talking about when you point to your
professional/educational background. But I would never transfer the strict
system of defining and deduction from mathematics to other areas of study.
In the Wikipedia (English page, lemma "Ontology") you can read: "Ontology
and language. Some philosophers suggest that the question of "What is?" is
(at least in part) an issue of usage rather than a question about facts."

There are many interesting fields of discussion, but please, I am quite
desperate if the mails in the yahoogroup become too numerous...

I apologize to everybody for this email of "meta discussion", and I would
also suggest to continue the one or other discussion off the list, if
possible.

Kind regards,

Susanne



------------------------------------
Posted by: "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson.on@...>
------------------------------------


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