User talk:Kukkurovaca

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Contents

1 Return 2 General Pleasantries 3 Mar02/04's Favourite Kukkurovaca Neologisms 4 Concerned Inquiries 5 Buddhism 6 Pratitya-samutpada 7 Arhat 8 "Education reform" article 8.1 Reply from Nick in South Africa 9 Paramita 10 Thanks re village pump 11 Question re:VfD 12 Buddhism and philosophy 13 Indo-European languages 14 bell hooks 15 Nature of philosophy continued 15.1 Hooks & Pragmatism 16 Indus/Devanagari 17 A Wish for Wings webcomic 18 Indo-Aryan/European Categorizing 19 Advisory opinion 20 Fluble images 21 Favorite typo 22 Reincarnation/Rebirth (Buddhist) Problem 23 Reincarnation/Rebirth (Buddhist) Problem - Cont. 24 Comment on Talk:Eastern culture 25 Proprieties and Spenser 26 Robert B. Parker 27 Para and Mu? 28 Formatting problem 29 Templates 30 Buddhism captions 31 Buddhism (in reincarnation article) 32 Prakrit 33 CC license template (Not urgent) 34 Howdy! and on Talk:Mulamadhyamakakarika 35 Happy Birthday! 36 Categories and Sub-Categories 37 ad hoc Friday gathering? 38 User:Ray Van De Walker 39 Creative Commons Dual-Licensing 40 More about "Education reform" 41 How and Why 42 Templates again 43 Speedy delete? 44 Welcome back

Return

Okay, I've begun my new (and profoundly time-consuming) job, which put me almost entirely out of commission for quite a while there. I've acquired a delightful new computing device and an internet connection, and I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things.

General Pleasantries

Howdy back! It's always good to see more people working on Buddhist stuff ... seems like you've been around awhile but just came back with a hunger! Would that be right? --prat 12:41, 2004 Apr 3 (UTC)

Ha! Yeah, something like that. The experience is something like when you pull on a thread on a sweater or something and it just keeps unravelling... कुक्कुरोवाच 12:54, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Mar02/04's Favourite Kukkurovaca Neologisms

• vignition
• isance and nonisance

I am curious as to the etymology and definitions! (20040302 20:28, 28 May 2004 (UTC))

Ha! Okay, those look sillier than they are. Vignition is my translation for vi√jñāna, and its pretty literal. jñāna is cognate to "gnosis" or, in compounds, "gnition" (like "cognition"). "Vi" means "apart", and vignition means something like "discrimination" (in the positive intellectual sense) or "discernment". But with Buddhism it often loses some of this particularity and becomes a simple intensifier, and it's usually translated as something like "consciousness" or even "cognition." Problem is, there's about twenty-five very common basic terms in Sanskrit and Pāli that mean those things, and it's often hard to distinguish between in translations, even though it's very important to do so. So I said, to hell with it, and skipped translating.

Isance and nonisance (oh, shnap, I should fix that--it should be "isnotance") are direct translations of astitva and nāstitva. Astitva is literally " 'It is'-ness " (i.e., it's an abstract noun derived from a quoted verb in the third person active singular form). It's often translated "existence," but that's not 100% accurate; existence should correspond to derivatives from √sthā, and the related "being" should be from the abstract nominal derivations from √bhu and √as; "astitva" should be translated with a word that reflects the particular verbal form contains in the compound. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 20:51, May 28, 2004 (UTC)

Concerned Inquiries

Why are you creating MediaWiki messages such as Template:R? Maximus Rex 07:53, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My interests include things that involve a lot of terms (untranslatable concepts, proper names, titles of texts) in Indo-Aryan languages that can't be correctly transliterated without appeal to certain diacritics. These can be expressed using unicode, but given the non-utf-ness of the English wiki, that's not only unaesthetic to deal with in the edit window, it can be confusing and time consuming. So I stuck a basic suite of unicode characters sufficient to transliterate most characters, along with a few troublesomely frequent words with multiple diacritics, in the MediaWiki messages area. That way I can type the msg, which doesn't jar the brain or the eye and allows for editing typos in an intuitive way.

I've got a list somewhere hereabouts...There:Shortcuts for inserting unicode romanization

Have I erred?

Buddhism

I know next to nothing about buddhism, but while discussing it with a buddhist friend of mine (a modest expert, I would say) we got into a bit of a disagreement over the meaning of zen. I quoted to him the wikipedia entry intro, and he suggested I ad the bit about zen. He also said that someone would surely disagree with it, and in that case offer 'some would say incorporates taoist thought'. I'm not sure if that is to your liking, but if not, I would ask you to rewrite a mention of taoism into the article in a way in which you feel is acceptable, as I am not myself an expert in this area. My preference is for Hinduism ;) Sam Spade 04:14, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sure thing. It's unquestionable that Zen incorporates Taoist thought (or at least, I wouldn't question it); the issue is how and where, and that's all I'm worried about. I'll try to find some good place for it to hide out until someone can actually talk about those things at length. In point of fact, that whole article is due for a serious rewrite, but no one's quite stepped up to the plate yet. कुक्कुरोवाच 04:21, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Pratitya-samutpada

Hi, I added something on Madhyamaka at Pratitya-samutpada, which needs a lookover at least! (20040302 05:49, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC))

Looks good. The comparison to Hume is apt. In the first two paragraphs I just reworded a bit, and also substituted "arising from ignorance and a lack of spiritual insight" for "based upon karmic prediliction and social environment." Hope that's okay.

Yes, it's great. Thanks.

I wasn't sure what to do with the second two paragraphs. Are you pointing towards a "mind-only" sort of interpretation? If so, that's fine, but I'd want to insert a sentence like, "While the Prasangikas stop at critiquing causation, other Madhyamaka schools, such as the Yogacara would say this reveals that all is only mind, etc..." Otherwise, to say that the existence of causation depends on the convention might be tautological after saying that causation is conventional.कुक्कुरोवाच

No - I was trying to explain how the Prasangika got to do that (i.e. just how Pratitya-samutpada demonstrates the lack of inherence), but it was far too early in the morning (we are in significantly different timezones, unless you are vampiric in your timekeeping), and I am not so eloquent. Please have a go, or maybe I shall continue to hack away at it! (20040302 09:02, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC))

Ha! I am highly vampiric in my timekeeping, but that doesn't rule out the possibility that we are also in significantly different timezones.कुक्कुरोवाच 09:19, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Arhat

Kukku -- I completed the merge of arhat and arahant. I wanted to check one thing with you. The arhat article says "It literally means 'foe destroyer' or 'worthy of respect'. This sounds strange just on the grounds that it is questionable how one word could really mean both things. I thought maybe you could shed some light. - Nat Krause 05:52, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The merge looks good. I don't have my physical dictionary handy, so I can't be absolutely sure about certain issues of deep etymology, but I don't see any sign of the "foe-destroyer" version in MW online or PTSD online. This means that either it's spurious (it does look superficially like a compound that might have something to do with that) or else it's pre- or very early Vedic. So, either trim it out, or give it as a "traditional" etymology, at your discretion, is what I say.कुक्कुरोवाच 06:11, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Certainly the Tibetans often translate Arhat to chom-dan-das-pa, which is literally 'foe-destroyer'. So, it looks like there is an early synonymic use. But kukku is exactly right about the lack of etymological evidence for this. However, MW definately appears to just define Arhat 'worthy of respect', though there may be a definition of Arhat as a foe-destroyer in an early Buddhist lexicon. Certainly the assertion of Arhat to mean 'foe-destroyer' is widespread and old! (20040302 09:30, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC))

"Education reform" article

Have you looked at Education reform? I was just skimming it, and I think it's horrid. You might be more competent at revising it than me, however. --Ryguasu 02:03, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that does blow chunks. Perhaps I'll take a stab at it.कुक्कुरोवाच

Reply from Nick in South Africa

Thanks for the welcome on my talk page, it's much appreciated. I shall look to do some more wiki contributions where I am able. With regards to Buddhism, I've read a fair deal but claim no academic credentials on any branch but will dabble where I feel that I can improve the Wikipedia intellectual capital. --Nick-in-South-Africa 22:46, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Paramita

Hey guy, can you check out the translation of Paramita that is up at that article? I wrote the current version, replacing "Perfection of character or Salvation", which just doesn't sound right. - Nat Krause 14:15, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I clarified the original meaning slightly. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽

Thanks re village pump

Many thanks for the reply about your Devanagari script signature on the village pump. One of the things I am always seem to be learning by hanging around at Wikipedia, is that there are a heck of a lot things I don't know much about! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 12:12, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

Question re:VfD

Sorry, can't help you there. =( I was voting a lot yesterday, but I don't recall any untoward incidents. Johnleemk | Talk 01:48, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You're indeed right that I voted on Bergger yesterday, but I don't recall replacing anything as I always use the links for editing section by section. Must be a glitch in the software. Anyway, I'd replace it if I could, but I'm not well-versed in merging in old parts of an article with a new one, and I'm afraid to mess up if I make a mistake, especially on a page as complex as VfD. Johnleemk | Talk 02:33, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Buddhism and philosophy

The link to List of Buddhists was included in the philosophy section as a temporary measure while I separate the wheat from the chaff - that is, separate Buddhist philosophers from Buddhist non-philosophers in a separate category.

You're right to mention that not only are Judaic, Christian, and Muslim philosophers appropriate to include, but they are currently included.

Indo-European languages

Hi! About "Nostratic". How's this brief note?: "Some linguists propose that Indo-European languages are part of a hypothetical Nostratic language superfamily, and attempt to relate Indo-European to other language families, such as Caucasian languages, Altaic languages, Uralic languages, Dravidian languages, Afro-Asiatic languages. This theory is controversial." I've entered it, but you can improve it! Wetman 06:07, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

bell hooks

The term 'philosopher' is widely debated. It originally meant (and still ought to mean, I would argue) "lover of wisdom", which can be interpreted very broadly. By extension, it has applied to any significant theorist in the general areas that Philosophy is concerned with (metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, logic).

As those areas cover every possible subject that anyone has ever dreamed of, 'philosopher' is a term that can apply to theorists of any stripe. More to the point, bell hooks can be considered a social philosopher and an ethical philosopher because of her works on feminism and racism. As can many Buddhist thinkers, incidentally, especially the Buddha; though perhaps as you point out, not all Buddhists.

Thanks for your critical appraisals.

Nature of philosophy continued

While it doesn't fit with modern slang usage, I actually do believe that many scientists are specialized sorts of natural philosophers. I base that on the history of the term as being a kind of umbrella.

The word 'Wisdom' seems to mean a reflection on experience. Since wisdom is key to philosophy, I don't think that hooks can be ostrasized from philosophy for citing personal experiences. It seems to me that what matters is what she does with those experiences in her work.

What you mention about Buddha - that he wrote nothing down - is just as easily applicable to most Greek philosophers. For example, it is now thought that Aristotle's works weren't actually done by him at all, but were rather compilations of his notes done by his students. And Socrates certainly never wrote down a word. Same's the case with many Presocratic philosophers.

Personally, I find the teachings attributed to Buddha to be of great philosophical significance, especially on subjects like ethics and the philosophy of mind. "Existence is suffering" is the perfect preamble to a one-sided kind of hedonistic view of human nature. Lucidish 00:58, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hooks & Pragmatism

It's all a matter of interpretation. To be honest, I haven't read hooks's work. Her attributed role in re-centering feminist philosophy, though, I think means that she merits the distinction as a philosopher.

Her more popular claims as I understand them aren't necessarily testable, but in that respect she's got a lot in common with a lot of philosophers. Metaphysics and ethics for example are two fields of philosophy that don't necessarily find justification through tests.

I think the practice of giving credit to the Characters that are widely attributed to have said the words is really all we've got. I mean, for all we know, Socrates was just one of Plato's characters. Soc.'s words were just attributed to him, but in the end, he's more a legend than an author. To be completely honest and prudent intellectually, I think we have a kind of duty to mention guys like Socrates, Christ, Buddha, and so on as philosophers, or at the very least, of being of great philosophical importance. Whether or not they actually said all the things that are attributed to them is part of the unfortunate and fuzzy nature of history. It seems to me that there's no solution except to include them as philosophers along with a warning for readers that "legends will grow".

I tend to disfavor pragmatism, just as an aside. It seems to blur the fact-value distinction. Lucidish 00:58, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Maybe she is a philosopher, maybe she isn't. The number of hits that come up on a Google search when you type in "bell hooks" and "philosophy" is 16,000, if that's any indication. The true test of whether or not a person is a philosopher - at least for me - is not what style that they write in, but rather whether or not I or many people think their words have any wisdom to them. I have no opinion on her, personally, but certainly some people think that her writings are wise, so I'm willing to include her.

I agree that things have to be applied to experience to seem relevant. Buddha, solipsists, etc would agree. But I don't think that's what Pragmatism is.

Though I was a bit cryptic about it last time: my concern with pragmatism is that the "pragmatic theory of truth" - that the test of something's 'truth' is if it is useful and can be practically applied - seems to be a blurring of fact and value. It seems to me that, according to this, if an idea leads to unpleasant consequences, then that fact is automatically untrue.

For example. A sweet old woman is lying on her deathbed, and says that she sees angels, but is really hallucinating. According to pragmatism, it is true that angels are there, because seeing angels yeilds good consequences. But from my standpoint, unpleasant and soulless as it may be to tell the sweet old woman that she's just dreaming, it still seems that what she's experiencing isn't "true". But according to pragmatism, the angels are true. (I'm using "truth" in a colloquial or epistemological sense here, not the logical one)

The way I see it, truth is not necessarily a species of Good. Granted, maybe on a long enough timeline, truth is good. But in terms of immediate consequences, sometimes the truth is just a flat out bummer.

Lucidish 06:08, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

We'll have to agree to disagree about hooks for now.

Thanks for the clarification of Pragmatism. I have read James's lecture series, incidentally, but haven't touched Dewey and am only passingly familiar with him.

As I've said, I agree that truth is valuable or useful in the long-term and on a wider scale.

But the problem of the old lady persists. What if you were to make it a rule that those in similar circumstances ought to say 'there are no angels'? That wouldn't be useful in the long-term. Sure, it might increase the devotion of persons to the idea of truth, to the point where they'd hurt their own mothers over it. But to do so is both unnecessary and paradoxical. Unnecessary, because that level of vigilance is far beyond the call of duty; and paradoxical, because it would be enslaving the value of wellbeing for the dying ladies to the value of truth, under the premise that the value of truth will serve overall human wellbeing. That strikes me as being a catch-22 for pragmatism, or is at least perplexing.

And also there's the case of the obscure scientist. If a scientist investigates something, but it is of no interest to anyone, and totally bereft of any practical applications, is his research then untrue?

Lucidish 17:21, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Indus/Devanagari

I'd like to keep the discussion all in one place, so I've responded at my talk page Ambarish | Talk 08:52, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A Wish for Wings webcomic

I just added the user link cause I could, and it's me. :) Feel free to remove the link if it's not kosher.

• Thank you for the KEEP vote. Just a note that I added to the talk pages on both of those pages that I won't be updating them anymore. If I'd known what kind of stink this would cause I never woulda done it in the first place. :) Jenn Dolari 01:56, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sure thing. Sorry it's been such a fuss. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 02:50, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Indo-Aryan/European Categorizing

Hey... I see you're doing an expansive job on languages, what with categorizing and what not. However, I object to the name "Indo-Aryan" as a classifier for one very simple reason: it is not a standard name and according to Wiki-policy the most common, standard nomenclature is preferred. In this case, "Indo-European" is the only universal protocol I have come across, and in a rough guestimate of usage Google returned more than 400,000 hits for "Indo-European" and "Indo European" while yielding less than 50,000 for "Indo-Aryan" and "Indo Aryan". While I'll wait on some feedback, I'm think the changes should be made to reflect linguistic scholarship as it exists today, i.e. European and not Aryan. --LordSuryaofShropshire 15:14, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

On the contrary, it is a standard name--for a sub-group of Indo-European languages, not as a term for the language family as a whole. "Indo-Iranian" is also used, but as "Iran" is a modern term, cognate to "Aryan" anyway, I don't see too much of a difference, and prefer "Indo-Aryan" as reflecting the antiquity of the ancient languages of the group. Also, I was sending this response as you deleted this comment, which I reinstated out of curiosity--did you answer your own questions? Wackyslav 15:53, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes thanks for your concerns. You're quite intelligent to notice that if I retracted my own message, it was obviously because I realized the answer to my question. --LordSuryaofShropshire 16:07, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Oh, shucks, wasn't any too great of a deductive leap. I just didn't want to have wasted all of five minutes on a response and suddenly not have anything to respond to. Glad your concerns have been addressed, one way or the other. Wackyslav 16:22, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ah, the comedy of it all. For the record, I was just making the cats reflect the existing pages Indo-European languages, Indo-Iranian languages, and Indo-Aryan languages. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 19:49, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I feel Buddhadev would have approved of my fessing up to a mistake, though perhaps my bitterness in discovery could have tempered. :) --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:11, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I can understand having a short fuse about some of the nomenclature games that people play with IE. Like "Indo-Germanic," which was pretty popular for a while, and which made no sense. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 20:14, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I did not touched the links willingly. I edited in links, and the browser stripped off accents when loading or saving edit. Next time I'll know and stick to Mozilla while on Wikipedia.Wikimol 15:48, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Advisory opinion

Kukku, what do you think about the translations in the intro to Gautama Buddha? I don't we've addressed the translation of "Siddhartha" before -- am I wrong? "Wish-fulfiller" sounds weird to me; I always thought it was more like "Goal-achiever". Also, I vaguely remember dealing with "Tathagata" before -- should it be "thus-come one" or "thus-gone one"? - Nat Krause 16:21, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"Artha" means aim or purpose; "wish" is, indeed, a little too something. Also, I have no clue what Tathagata means. At all. But I touched up the intro a bit. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 17:24, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"Artha" can also mean wealth (as in "ArthaShaastra", or economics). Another meaning is "meaning" itself :), at least in Hindi and the other languages deriving from Sanskrit, if not in Sanskrit itself. As for "Tathaagata", "he who went thus" might be a better translation. "Tathaa" means "thus", as in "Tathaastu" (Tatha + Astu, lit. so be it). "Gata" probably comes from the Sanskrit verb for "go" (My knowledge of Sanskrit verb conjugation has completely flown out the window, however. Maybe कुक्कुरोवाच can correct me on this?) rajneesh 07:59, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Fluble images

Where is the artist's permission for release under GFDL documented? RickK 23:25, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)

Even if it were obtained, the Image:Flublefreakyclownroom.gif image is ENTIRELY too large. It has to be shrunk in half, at least. RickK 23:25, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)

OK, thanks for documenting the permission. But somebody still really needs to pare down that image I mentioned above. RickK 23:46, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)

Favorite typo

(diff) (hist) . . m Wikipedia:Village pump; 20:33:23 . . Kukkurovaca (Talk) (Naming convention for maiden and married women - Monkier>moniker--favorite typo of the day.)

Thanks for the laugh! And thanks for catching it, too. -- ke4roh 00:38, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

Reincarnation/Rebirth (Buddhist) Problem

What exactly is the Reincarnation/Rebirth (Buddhist) problem? In my limited understanding of Buddhist Rebirth, the emphasis against a "fixed self" is based in the ideas of impermance and dependant arising. It is not there is nothing to pass from life to life, but rather what passes is very subtle and changable.

Eh. It's complicated. It has to do with reconstructionist Buddhists and devout Hindus struggling over what is ultimately a semantic distinction that arises purely in translation. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 03:54, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I believe that problems that are merely semantic can be solved using symbolic logic. This one seems to be a matter of faith, not semantics. Apparently the traditional Buddhist has faith in an entity that is more nearly permanent than any entity in the disbeliever's canon. In short, the "re" in rebirth appears to nullify the "an" in "anatta". -User:munge 17 July 2004

Ah Munge, how mistaken one can be. The 're' in rebirth in no way whatsoever nullifies the 'an' in anatta. In brief, it is hard to see how your assertion does not entail a nihilistic view of Anatman. There are plenty of primary sources that deal with this specific discussion. Personally, I recommend Tsongkhapa (ISBN 1559391669) for a good traditional Buddhist approach. (20040302)

It is no less difficult to see how rebirth does not entail an eternalist view, and no less beside the point. Setting aside easy or difficult, whatever aspect you hold as returning, to disregard its returning need not entail nihilism. Traditional or contemporary, it is possible to find that Buddhist sources imperfectly refute the heretical ones. The problem deserves NPOV treatment. My proposed solution is to allow that faith in rebirth is not optional for the orthodox Buddhist. The alternative would be for someone to assemble a straightforward line of reasoning that may or may not convince nonbelievers, but at least comprehensibly shows them how the two doctrines do not contradict each other. Take my word for it: they seem to, for some people who are not necessarily deserving of condescension. -munge 10 August 2004

Munge, I feel you missed my point. It is not the lack of rebirth that entails a nihilistic view in your argument, but your understanding of annata. Indeed, the an- in annata not only does not nullify rebirth, but it allows for it, and there are plenty of sound lines of reasoning in traditional Buddhism to support that. (Don't get me wrong here - annata does not assert rebirth, but allows for it). Secondly, and certainly within the Madhyamika, Buddhists use lines of reasoning that are acceptable to their opponents, not necessarily acceptable to themselves. So, when judging the arguments structured opponents, it would be a mistake to judge their efficacy against your own logical system. It would be astounding if the assertion was correct: that there was a key contradiction between anatman and rebirth which none of the millions of buddhist academics of 2500 years had ever discovered or even written about. I am pretty sure the 'conflict' is both discussed and refuted (using reasoning that I feel you would be content with) by Nagarjuna.

No-one deserves condescension- if I appeared condescending, I apologise. From what I understand of your arguments so far, I recommend you continue to study annata.

There is no conflict between annata and rebirth. However, annata does not entail rebirth, (unlike, for instance, karma, which does). I am not too sure I can agree with the basic assertion - that it is acceptable to be a buddhist and believe that there is no rebirth. There are definately some major challenges to the position (which, unlike anatman, are legitimate) - for instance:

1. What sort of refuge does a Buddhist taking in the Dharma (which asserts rebirth), if he/she rejects rebirth? (so what sort of buddhist?!)
2. Samsara, karma, interdependance, etc. all must be rejected or re-interpreted.
3. Why practice Buddhism? According to non-rebirth doctrine, Death produces cessation of suffering (the third noble truth) - so the four noble truths fail.
4. Samatha practices alone are not enough for one to claim to be a Buddhist (the practices are shared with non-buddhists) - so what is left of the Dharma to be called a Buddhist?

Lastly, rebirth cannot be disproved, so it does not warrant disbelief. However, there is an alternative to buddhists - buddhists can remain open-minded - through following the (sound) reasoning that rebirth cannot be disproved, but the individual has no experience of it. This attitude does not conflict with Buddhism, whereas the conviction that rebirth does not exist conflicts in many ways (such as mentioned above). (20040302 08:09, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC))

Let's say I provionally grant that "the person who cannot reconcile anatta and rebirth is not Buddhist". That would seem to validate, not refute my assertion that a person must have Buddhist faith in order to reconcile them. But it is not the same as saying that the two doctrines are logically consistent—that the problem is "semantic", as Kukkurovaca put it. Incidentally, the inability to disprove—nonfalsifiability—is a mark against, not for, a semantic assertion. And, though I consider it off-topic, I find that some traditional Buddhist sources (not just modern revisionists) do take an attitude of "if not in this life, what's the use?" and otherwise deal with the questions, demands for reinterpretation, etc. that you raise. If I have failed to make my point by now, so be it. -munge 12 August 2004

Reincarnation/Rebirth (Buddhist) Problem - Cont.

Let's say I provionally grant that "the person who cannot reconcile anatta and rebirth is not Buddhist".

This would be pretty hard to agree upon; generally the definition of a Buddhist is someone who takes refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha (triratna).

Also, I can see that it is feasible for someone to not understand Anatta or rebirth after having taken refuge (otherwise we would have to say that young Buddhist children are not really Buddhist).

Many Buddhists assert that once you have correctly percieved anatta, then you are an Arya. Your statement would suggest that non-enlightened beings are non-buddhists.

Therefore, it is possible for a Buddhist to not be able to reconcile anatta and rebirth.

However, I guess you are saying that "'It is a non-buddhist stance to assert that anatta and rebirth cannot be reconciled.'"? This is more acceptable.

That would seem to validate, not refute my assertion that a person must have Buddhist faith in order to reconcile them.

Not really. Nagarjuna is famous for arguing that rebirth entails anatta; moreover, that time, space, chariots and other (more concrete) phenomena entail anatta. I can also imagine people (e.g. non-essentialist rebirth-believers) who accept rebirth and anatta, but do not accept Buddha.

I am not sure I understand the way in which you use the term 'faith' - in Buddhism this is interpreted as 'knowledge arising from repeated experience or critical analysis', whereas the Christian concept of faith (as I understand it) is known (in Buddhism) as 'blind faith'; such a type of faith is not considered necessary or desirable in Buddhism.

But it is not the same as saying that the two doctrines are logically consistent—that the problem is "semantic", as Kukkurovaca put it.

There is no 'problem'. The two doctrines are indeed logically consistent, IFF they are understood. As I have repeated, I think that though you may understand rebirth, I am not convinced you understand annata. I suggest you read the article at Atman (Buddhism) for a discussion of what it is that is denied by anatta; a far more detailed discussion may be found in Tsongkhapa.

Incidentally, the inability to disprove—nonfalsifiability—is a mark against, not for, a semantic assertion.

I suggest you read the article Falsifiability for various opinions as to the position given to '(non)falsifiability'. Moreover, Buddhism is not beholden to accept that nonfalsifiability is a mark against a semantic assertion. Regardless, My point was not to be assertive - merely that nonfalsifiability does not allow for unbiased beliefs in either the truth or falseness of a nonfalsifiable statement: rebirth can not be definitively asserted or denied.

And, though I consider it off-topic, I find that some traditional Buddhist sources (not just modern revisionists) do take an attitude of "if not in this life, what's the use?" and otherwise deal with the questions, demands for reinterpretation, etc. that you raise. If I have failed to make my point by now, so be it.

Thanks for mentioning that. I am interested in traditional sources for this - a couple of urls would do, if you could find the time.

20040302 09:20, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I am troubled by the fact that I feel compelled to respond, despite my conviction that you have repeatedly changed the subject and have yet to address the points I actually make, and shamefully I fear I will be further drawn in when/if you do so again to the following points: In the Pali canon, consider Buddhist causality (paticcasamuppada). Just as sensation, for example, emerges repeatedly, so birth refers to each moment of life for those yet to awaken—rather than to bodily birth. Later, "Not born, not destroyed", sings the author of the Prajnaparamita Sutra. Anatta is fundamental; doctrines are upaya, including doctrines about birth, let alone about rebirth. The prevailing attitude of the Chinese (not to say the Tibetans) included an abiding concern with sudden awakening, marginalizing the idea of spiritual progress within a lifetime, let alone from one to the supposed next; see for example Tao Sheng (as in Sudden and Gradual, edited by Gregory). Dogen, too, in his references to birth, referred to each moment, not reincarnation; look up "rebirth" in the index of Moon in a Dewdrop.

"Reinterpretation" is only necessary for people with preconceived concepts of reincarnation; these ideas are only "revisionist" to those who prefer the kind of hermaneutics that are consistent with folk culture, and who seem to ignore another tradition of Buddhist scholarship. From the POV of that other tradition, literal belief in reincarnation is no requirement. If the Buddhist must believe in a literal interpretation of every passage of the sutras, then we must believe in supernatural beings, too. The voluminous literature of Zen has very little to say about reincarnation; references that are there are traditionally held as metaphorical; and nothing whatever about a requirement for believing in it; in contrast, anatta seems to be in virtually every phrase of Zen. Belief in reincarnation is not only entirely optional in Zen, like all other beliefs it risks being an obstacle, apparently unlike Tibetan Buddhism. (I wager that non-Buddhists would find that Bon funerary influence nullifies any criticisms that a hypothetical Tibetan critic may make of the Taoist influence in Zen.)

Finally, even if it was the case that the Buddhist "is not beholden to accept that nonfalsifiability is a mark against a semantic assertion" it would remain the case that belief in reincarnation does not seem to be reconcileable with anatta from the POV of symbolic logic and from that POV there is indeed a "reincarnation/rebirth (Buddhist) problem". Who faces the problem? It's not a problem for the skeptic. Rather, for the Buddhist proselytizer who believes in reincarnation. At any time and place, but especially in the West, especially today. Again, whatever is reincarnated is some entity that is more, not less, than the nonbeliever fathoms. More persistent. More entities. Those are precisely the points I am making, that I feel you have changed the subject away from. While I'm on that subject, if the Buddhist must believe in more entities than the skeptic believes in, that would seem to violate the Occam-like Buddhist doctrine of non-proliferation of concepts (papanca).

I am not satisfied with my own explanation. But I am satisfied that there is a non-trivial, non-semantic problem, and that to deny that the problem exists is to be in denial. --munge 22 August 2004

Thank-you for your eloquent and elegant article, Munge. I like your reasoning, and indeed, agree that there is a long-standing tradition of rebirth within Buddhism that represents the moment-to-moment death-and-rebirth of the continuum of consciousness. Of course, it would be hard to deny that there is also a long-standing tradition of rebirth within Buddhism that asserts that the sole cause of a subseqent moment of consciousness is the previous moment- the idea of continuity of consciousness being used as 'rationale' for the Buddhist assertion of metaphysical beginninglessness ( no beginning, no end ), used as the basis for also asserting rebirth-as-reincarnation. Indeed, these interpretations support each other, rather than contradict each other, and there is certainly no need to 'reinterpret' - in much Buddhism, the continuum of consciousness is identified as being separable from the continuum of the body; tantra does allow for the intermediary 'subtle' body of winds, channels, and drops - but especially here, there is an assertion of the subtlest, '(death) consciousness of clear light', which does not depend upon anything other than it's own previous moment.

Within basic doctrine (Twelve Nidanas of paticca samuppada), we can see that the cause of reincarnation-rebirth is attachment caused by ignorance. This basic attachment for life is what leads us to be reborn - we just don't want to let go, so it is not necessary to assert the continuity of consciousness as found in tantra - all we need is 'unsettled business' with the world. Maybe it is better to use an analogy.

Munge the whirlpool: A whirlpool is a conseqence of the energy found in the water that bears it, even though it (simplistically) appears to be self-standing. The whirlpool may vanish periodically, but while the water is subject to the energy that causes it, it will definately reappear. Similarly, while the energy that caused your physical birth is undissipated, regardless of whether or not you die physically, while that energy is undissipated, then the turmoil - the whirlpool will re-appear. What Buddha asserted was that you are responsible for your own whirling, and this is something that Buddhists generally accept.

Just in case you are unfamiliar with Nagarjuna/Candrakirti's interpretation of causality in paticca samuppada, it would be worthwhile to check the article, just to see that it is not necessary within Buddhism for causality to be essentialist. As Huntington points out, Buddhism does not have the problems of causality found in Western philosophies inherited from Cartesian rationalism.

I like your quote from prajna-paramita, where you argue well the assertion that all that phenomena are "Not born, not destroyed" - which demonstrates that if one were to assert a conflict between annata and rebirth/reincarnation then you also assert a conflict between annata and any other non-essentialist phenomenon such as, for instance, a chariot.

As for upaya - yes; but that doesn't open up a conflict, and it doesn't open up free rein for interpretation; it provides boundaries. Those boundaries are the limits of acceptance of belief. According to Buddhism, it is not 'wise' (as you know) to accept beliefs that entail essentialism or nihilism. Anything in between, -anything- is acceptable as long as it does not contradict itself, or others that share in the conventions that it may belong to. And I hope you agree that rebirth/reincarnation does not necessarily entail essentialism.

Indeed, reincarnation is upaya - as is wikipedia, the internet, these words. What a Buddhist is interested in is Nirvana. The path is set out, there are doctrines available to suit individual needs. What may be a conflict for some is no conflict for others. You cannot claim an essential conflict between annata and reincarnation, and I cannot claim an essential lack of conflict. But for my conventions, there is no conflict. For you, well, choose the conventions that work for you, according to the goal that you seek.

Regardless, it seems that your argument is less about a supposed conflict between annata and reincarnation/rebirth; much more an argument regarding a supposed conflict between reincarnation and your(?) theory of 'papanca' as a Buddhist hermeneutic somewhat equivalent to Ockham's razor. Though I have doubts about such an interpretation of papanca, I consider the argument far more interesting, and possibly far more defensible.

If I were to rephrase your claim: "reincarnation is unnecessarily overcomplex". Is this right? Or have I misinterpreted you here?

The best to you. (20040302 23:24, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC))

Yes, or more to the point the reconcilliation of the two is unnecessarily complex. I take my interpretation of papanca from Concept and Reality by Bhikku Nanananda, e.g. concepts proliferate, deterring right mindfulness. Similarly, another teacher says that in vain we try to fill what is empty by means of more learning (yet I haven't noticed him ever discourage study).

I will omit to mention the name of a certain monk who, in the English-speaking world, is somewhat famous for challenging the belief in reincarnation, having written a book about that topic. He told me once that in reality, he neither believes nor disbelieves in reincarnation. Similarly, Bertrand Russell actually professed to be an agnostic (Religions in America, Rosten, ed.) rather than the atheist everyone took him for. Nevertheless, personally, I suspect it is simply not my power to ever believe that so-and-so is the reincarnation of such-and-such historical figure; not without some extraordinary demonstration of the truth of such a statement. --munge 22 August 2004

---

Comment on Talk:Eastern culture

-Stevertigo 04:47, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Proprieties and Spenser

Thanks for the information on how to use Talk! I don't think I'd ever have guessed that I should click on the +.

Anyway, the question was whether I needed permission to use bibliographic information on Spenser that I got from a fan page. In academic articles, if you use information from somewhere else, you just cite your source and that takes care of the proprieties. I think that's what's going on here. Would it make a difference if I checked all the titles on Amazon? --JerryFriedman 01:04, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Robert B. Parker

I'll go along with your shrug. You and I both edited what I copied and pasted (yes, I admit it), and the result is no different from what we would have gotten by retyping the information in a highly standard form. So I'm not going to pursue this. Maybe we should decide whether we want to put publication years in parentheses, though (not that I have strong feelings about it).

JerryFriedman 16:23, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Para and Mu?

Kukkurovaca, in the Parayanavagga, chapter 6, in the very first lines of Buddha's answer to Upasiva (who asks for advice about crossing over the flood), Buddha expresses verses something like "focused on nothingness, depending on negation"...I don't don't have a Pali version nor skills in Pali...and the translation I'm working with may be iffy...but would you care to speculate if "wu" has anything to do with tne negation in that verse?

Is the term used "akiṅcañña"? (BTW, the 4th character in that doesn't show up as readable on my browser, but I cribbed it from the above article. Your name doesn't show up readable either. I use W98 and Explorer v6 and have every language supported by MS for that platform installed.)

On related note, do you really think Para is so old? Consider: Tolkien's language is relatively archaic--yet the writings of Henry James are older yet more modern-sounding. Obviously, it's older than other sutras that refer to it. But that doesn't guarantee it's among the oldest, just among the more influential. Other evidence of age, maybe in the content of the verses? (user:munge 17 July 2004

I don't have it in front of me, but I've worked with that verse before, and I'm pretty sure that yes, the term translated there as "nothingness" would have been akiṅcañña, which literally means something like not-anything-ness, which may be the same as nothingness, but I've never been sure. As to whether it relates to "wu", that's hard, because there are several degrees of cultural and doctrinal separation there. I would hazard to say that it would be hard to establish a textual trail leading from the one to the other, but I would be reluctant to say they are entirely unrelated. If one believes that Buddhist scripture reflects real experience, then one could posit that the terms refer to a similar experience. But from a scholarly standpoint, it's difficult, because "wu" arises in a Mahayana context, meaning a different metaphysics, and in China, under heavy Taoist influence. So, ::shrug::

As to the age of texts--Tolkien's writing imitates archaic language--I'm sure it does so well, since Tolkien was a philologist, but that's the kind of thing scholars are good at identifying. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit uses a lot of Sanskritic or mock-Sanskritic elements, but does so in ways that are subtly or less subtly clearly incorrect (equivalent to people saying "ye" to sound archaic). I'm inclined to trust the scholars when they say that these texts are really in an older form of the langauge, particularly since I'm pretty sure there's no dispute about it. Now, the fact that other sutras refer to it is non-trivial, I believe, because the sutras that refer to it are themselves not all that recent, and others refer to them, etc., in such a chain that one can infer that, relative to the rest of the canon, these texts are quite young. And there is, indeed, content-based evidence, but it strikes me a somewhat less persuasive. Basically, the content-based evidence is that certain formulae, phrases, ideas, etc., are not present in the form in which they occur in most of the canon, but are present in some other form that some scholars believe is earlier than the later, "fixed" version. The main thing that I've done with the Para and the Attha is to look at evidence of meditative practice, and the interesting thing I found was that evidence for vipassanā-type practice was scant, while samatha-type practice was prominent, which is interesting, since our surviving traditions of Indian Buddism certainly emphasize vipassanā, and some have argued that it's a fundamental trait of Buddhism.

Don't worry that not all the characters display; that's just unicode support being lacking. Blame the wiki-powers-that-be. Also, the rest of the software industry, to be fair. If you have Arial Unicode MS, you should make sure that your browser and your wikipedia CSS specify it; that'll solve some of the problem. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 17:04, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wuhoo! It shows your name and everything now. But it still doesn't show the Chinese characters on page http://kr.buddhism.org/zen/koan/Robert_Sharf-e.htm (which is somewhat related to the topic of this thread). Any suggestions? -user:munge 29 July 2004

That page isn't a unicode issue; it looks like it was composed using a proprietary font of some kind, and I don't know about non-unicode standards for transcription of Chinese characters. (I'm an Indo-European boy at heart). Some of the other folks hereabouts probably do, though. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 15:20, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Formatting problem

There is a formatting problem in the references section of the Rhinoceros Sutra page, which I do not know how to fix. Burschik 16:08, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a combination of my fault and the fault of the designers of the latest version of the MediaWiki software. I'd had a workaround for special unicode characters that became considerably less functional due to a bug in the message/template system. In the future, if you come across one and want to fix it yourself, change {{whatever}} to {{subst:whatever}}. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 17:13, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Templates

Thanks for the info on templates; my apologies for the inconvenience caused...(this is regarding the article on Nagarjuna).

On a related note, I've just killed Template:a, Template:o, and Template:u. (I'll try to go through the other Sanskrit-transliteration templates later (see Mulamadhyamakakarika#The early chapters for a distressingly clear example of why this needs doing). You're the only user with references in their personal page; you might want to fix these. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 18:48, 2004 Sep 5 (UTC)

I did it. There's no reason why you can't fix somebody else's user page, it's just mucking with the content or changing what isn't broken you should avoid. - Furrykef 19:39, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, this is all quite nice, except for the fact that the templates are still useful--it's easier to use subst: with a template than to constantly muck around with unicode numbers or pasting. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 00:19, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Buddhism captions

Hi, Kukkurovaca, I could use your help making the captions on Buddhism into full sentences (guidelines and tips at Wikipedia:Captions). I'd try it myself, but I'm sure I'd make a mess of things. I've made some comments on Talk:Buddhism#Captions -- ke4roh 02:35, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

Buddhism (in reincarnation article)

Nice edits; they were needed.--LordSuryaofShropshire 00:16, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. And yeah, I don't know what was going on there before. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽

Prakrit

When you get a chance, can you take a quick look at the prakrit article. Someone changed it to read that prakrit means "procreate, as in the secondary creation". I should probably remove that just on the grounds of being prima facie nonsensical, but why don't you apply your book learnin' to it instead. - Nat Krause 04:11, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. Yeah, that was sketchy. There may actually be a linguistic connection between prakrit and procreate; it depends on whether the Sanskrit verb "kr" is cognate with the latin "creare" from which we get "create" (or so OED tells me). That's certainly possible (kr conjugates in forms beginning with "kri", so...), but I just don't know; we'd have to ask someone who knew more comparative linguistics than I, and Wackyslav, who's the person I'd go to first, is, I think, unavailable. However, it's not really important, and in any case it has no "secondary" connotations at all, and the anon's further inferences are equally silly-looking to me. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 19:35, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Further checking in MW yields "Lat. creo, ceremonia" as cognates of kr, but I don't know whether "creo" and "creare" are the same thing. Anybody know any Latin? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽

Not really, but "creo" would be the first person of "creare", which is infinitive. Amo, amas, amat, etc. - Nat Krause 00:43, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So conclusion: procreate and prakrit are etymologically related, but this doesn't really mean anything, much as with prajna and "prognosis". -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 20:28, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

CC license template (Not urgent)

You might want to update your CC license with the Template:DualLicenseWithCC-BySA. Just replace your current notice with {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA}}. That way, you'll be listed in What links here (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Template%3ADualLicenseWithCC-BySA) page. JesseW 07:03, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Okey-doke. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 18:30, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Howdy! and on Talk:Mulamadhyamakakarika

Hi, Kukkurovaca,

I enjoy your articles very much, and all of other's contribution too. Thanks!

I came across your Mulamadhyamakakarika article and I left some observations on the talk page (Talk:Mulamadhyamakakarika), please check it out. I'm also interested in joining the WikiProject_Buddhism effort too, and in fact I left my name there already.

Nice to meet you, --Godric 13:36, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

I just first have a chance to read your replies since my internet was down for a month at home. Thanks for your reply. Now I'll look into them.--Godric 21:03, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Nick! Best wishes. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 02:11, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I felt like wishing a random happy birthday to someone today, but I see someone had the same idea. Too bad, happy birthday anyway. :-) --[[User:Valmi|Valmi ✒]] 19:01, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Categories and Sub-Categories

Thanks for your encouragement for my work on British Science Fiction.

It would make more sense to delete sub-categories if we were working in a truly Semantic Web but if I delete higher categories, users will have to visit (and understand the navigation of) at least one extra web page. I'll think more carefully before I do this again though :-)

-- Uncle Bill 01:21, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

ad hoc Friday gathering?

I'll be in Oakland & Palo Alto Friday, and would love to meet some Wikipedians in the area... +sj+ 21:35, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. What time? I'd only be free during the day (prior commitment). Also, I certainly couldn't promise to be interesting. :) Nor can I commend to you other locals, as I don't know any of the other Wikipedians in the area. But anyone from the East Bay is at least theoretically proximate. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 01:03, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

sigh, during the day will be too early. Ah well, it was too ad-hoc. Next time, with more warning! +sj+ 12:02, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

User:Ray Van De Walker

Please see my comments in Education Reform. Thanks for notifying me.

Creative Commons Dual-Licensing

I've been updating the CC licensing stuff (Guide to the CC dual-license) and also created a new template {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} to license contributions under the CC-by-sa version 1.0 AND version 2.0. Just wanted to let you know in the event that you also wanted to also use version 2.0. -- Ram-Man 19:33, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

I responded to your question on the meta page. -- Ram-Man 20:40, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

More about "Education reform"

I was looking just now at Education reform. You weren't the one who added the stuff about education improving economic well-being in Iran and in Kerala, India, to the "motivations for reform" section, were you? Or maybe you nonetheless know about the underlying case studies? I think it's pretty silly to cite these cases without giving a reference to the underlying research and without giving a slightly more in-depth summary. If you don't know anything, I guess I'll ask on the talk page. --Ryguasu 14:31, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How and Why

I do not stand on florid style, but it seems useful to say how the "new" Buddhist preactices are different and why they are evolving. Can you also point out to me what you mean by "new." I see them as quite traditional, really. What are you basing your argument on? Haiduc 13:30, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Templates again

Hallo, Kukkurovaca! I discovered your templates (template:t, template:s and template:h — are there others like this?). I'm trying to find an easier way to do transliteration in articles (do you think the subst: propt needs to be used?), and I've prepared a table at wikipedia talk:wikiProject Languages#Unicode transliteration proposal. I was thinking of piggy-backing these templates on template:unicode to force browsers (like MSIE 6) to display Unicode properly. Do you have any thoughts on this? Gareth Hughes 14:42, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Speedy delete?

Hi Kukkurovaca - I notice that your page User:Kukkurovaca/BuddhistShortcuts has the speedy delete template on it, but I can't tell from the way it's displayed whether you actually want the page deleted or not. Please let me know at my talk page whether or not you want it deleted! Grutness|^hello? Missing image
Grutness.jpg


11:05, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have added several <nowiki> tags to that page. Someone just re-created Template:N without checking all the effects it caused. jni 13:11, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Welcome back

Good to have you back aboard. Congrats on your new job! - Nat Krause 07:39, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Any interesting controversies lately? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽

Well, you'll probably want to take a look at Talk:Atthakavagga and Parayanavagga. There's also a response to you at Talk:Mahasamghaka. Nothing else major that springs to mind. A few weeks ago, an anonymous describing herself as a Buddhist nun accused us all on Talk:Buddhism being biased pro-Theravada, but nothing much came of it. - Nat Krause 07:51, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Ah, indeed. Thanks muchly. (And you could hardly accuse all of us of being Theravadins--it wouldn't be hard to identify POV edits for Mahayana or Tibetan Buddhism. Also neo-Atheists. And I've certainly been accused of Madhyamaka POV, which really doesn't fit cleanly into any of the other boxes. All in all, we're a diverse group of bigots if ever I saw one.) -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 02:14, 14 May 2005 (UTC)