Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Buddhism/Archive 3

Notice of Requested move: Iṣṭadevatā (Buddhism) → Yidam

I have requested that the article Iṣṭadevatā (Buddhism) be moved back to it's original title Yidam. The article was previously moved on grounds of consistency with the titles of other related articles which are derived from Sanskrit, which was a reasonable motive - however, as I have outlined on the article's talk page here, the Hindu term Iṣṭadevatā is not actually traditionally used in Buddhism and is found nowhere in Sanskrit or Tibetan Buddhist texts (it first occurred in this context in some outdated western books which conflated Buddhist tantra with Hinduism) - and the current title (and some of the current content) only perpetuate that mis-conception. The terms "Yidam" or "meditation diety" are now most commonly used in reliable English language books on Buddhism so I am requesting it be moved back to Yidam for accuracy and per WP:COMMONNAME. Please see: Talk:Iṣṭadevatā_(Buddhism)#Requested_move_15_December_2014 and Wikipedia:Requested_moves#Current_discussions -- Chris Fynn (talk) 12:10, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I commented on the talk page.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 02:47, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

The issue of translation

Most books by Tibetan lamas are translations.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 00:19, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes you will sometimes find different terminology and interpretation being used by books by one lama depending on who the particular translator / interpreter of the book was. Of course any translation from a language as different as are Tibetan and English is pretty much an "interpretation" ~ particularly when it comes to things like philosophical views. (Sanskrit, being an Indo-European language, is far closer to European languages than Tibetan is.)

Another problem is that, just like the "autobiographies" of various politicians and celebrities, quite a number of books by some Tibetan lamas published in English are largely "ghost written" or compiled by editors from transcripts of talks. It is well known for instance that Andrew Harvey was largely responsible for Sogyal Rinpoche's "The Tibetan Art of Living and Dying"; Many of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's books written by editors who assembled material from talks Trungpa Rinpoche gave - usually merging parts of various talks he gave on a particular topic. Many of the books published under the name of HH the Dalai Lama were actually written by his translator and others - while others were compiled by editors from his talks. These are just a few of the more prominent cases. Of course neither the publishers, ghost writers and editors nor the supposed authors are going to admit this except in private and there are probably non-disclosure agreements.

Tibetan lamas probably see little problem with this. Historically many Tibatan books were written by students based on oral teachings they received from their teacher and then the authorship was attributed to the teacher. In some cases Tibetan Lamas took a whole text written by a previous lama and then "re published" it under their own name. Tibetan scholars also almost always cited quotations from memory. Because of this, frequently there are some changes to what the text they are citing actually says, - and sometimes wrong attribution.

Alex Berzin also points out that there are also often inconsistencies in what Lamas write and that they are not very clear: "His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains sometimes, when he talks about various views, that you have to distinguish – actually Shantideva did say this as well – you have to distinguish between what these great authors write and what they actually experience and achieve in meditation. And he says a great many highly-realized masters are not very skilled in explaining themselves clearly – what they actually realize. And because of their lack of skill in writing clearly, if you just look at what they wrote, then you’ll find quite a lot of contradictions in it and inaccuracies. But you can’t say on the basis of that that nobody ever achieved the path of seeing – or liberation, or enlightenment – without having the Gelugpa view. So that’s how His Holiness explains, and I think that’s very reasonable. Because you certainly can meet a lot of different masters who don’t have this skill of being able to explain themselves clearly."<[1]>.

People often assume that a Tibetan Geshe degree is more or less equivalent to a PhD. It isn't. The Tibetan monastic education system, particularly that for the Gelug geshe degree, may be very detailed and difficult, but it is very narrow. Candidates mostly study the views contained in the particular commentaries and textbooks of their own monastic college. The "debates" they have are against geshe candidates from other monastic colleges of the same sect. With few exceptions, most geshes have never read or studied works of scholars outside their own tradition. Because of the emphasis on memorization and oral debate many geshes in Tibet could hardly write a proper sentence in Tibetan and often made numerous spelling mistakes. There is nothing like original critical research or a written papers - let alone a dissertation. Chris Fynn (talk) 11:57, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Just a few points here. First, that by itself is a bit of a Western view on it. Do you understand the subject best by doing a written thesis? Or by being able to argue it in debate challenged by many others firing questions at you? Does a scholar who writes a thesis on a narrow area of study really understand their subject better than someone who trains in this way?

And - what about meditating and applying the teachings in meditation and in your life - might this not perhaps, in the case of Buddhism, help you to understand the sutras better. Much as a gardener who tries growing vegetables is likely to have a better understanding of books on gardening than someone who has never planted a seed in the soil? Bearing in mind that the sutras are rooted in a meditative tradition?

Agreed that meditation and realization do not by themselves mean you are going to be a scholar. And need not mean that you are regarded as good at communicating the ideas in an intellectual way to others either. But - I think they may well help, when the sutras are for a large part about meditation practices - that it may well help to understand some of the subtleties in them, that they are meditators themselves, for the scholars who also meditate.

And as well as that, though some of those trained in this way have not much interest in other topics outside of their studies - others - they are very interested - first in the other Tibetan traditions - that's in the Rime school - so they may be particularly good sources perhaps. Also some at least are also really interested in Western science and the things we are finding out - the Dalai Lama being a good example there.

While - some Western academics - okay they have written a thesis on something - but they may have a rather narrow view on things. I've met many academics who know a lot about a really tiny area of study. Some are polymaths in their field and have a wide view as well. But some are - just not that much interested in anything outside of a tiny field of study which totally fascinates them. So - that's an issue in the West as well.

As for the books co-authored - see no problem using such books as citations, especially with good co-authors. It's understandable that especially the Dalai Lama's first books were co-authored when he didn't have much English. And - these books say that they are co-authored - or compiled from talks, or translated etc.

There is no secret there. Of course the teacher has his name on the cover. But read inside, and it explains in detail how the book came to be written down. See for instance the editors introduction to Shambala the Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa. I link to the amazon page because they have a "look inside" feature so anyone can read the first few pages and see what it says. Robert Walker (talk) 03:26, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with CFynn's comments on this page as well as the comment CFynn left you on your talk page.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 21:10, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Robertinventor, you wrote:

Does a scholar who writes a thesis on a narrow area of study really understand their subject better than someone who trains in this way?

No, probably not but one is able to construct a well-structured overview by studying the primary sources.

What's this fuss about "Western academics" anyway? Don't they have Buddhist research in the universities of the East as well? This might be a bit off-topic, but I remember a distinction between science, art and practice. Practically, what the work of academics represents is what we call "science", whereas the non-academic Buddhist scholars represent "art" and "practice". Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:14, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

That's all grand, but how here speaks Tibetan? Montanabw^(talk) 04:35, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

There are great scholars on Buddhism in Japan. Bernard Faure and John McRae, great scholars themselves, studied with Yanagida Seizan. They are (were; McRae died three years ago) idolate of him. "Dedicated to Yanagida Seizan, with inexpressible gratitude" (John McRae, "Seeing Through Zen"). See the introduction written by Yanagida Seizan for The Record of Lin-ji to get a taste of his writings. Yanagida Seizan (I don't know which name is his surname...) was a practitioning Buddhist. YS studied the manuscripts from the Mogao Caves, and discovered that those tects deviate in important respects from the histpry of the Zen-school as reported by that school itself. YS was not afraid to take a critical stance, just like Masao Abe, another famous Japanese scholar and practitioning Buddhist. See also "Sudden and Gradual", a supern collection od publications on the sudden-gradual debate in Zen. Really oustanding. McRae's contribution opened my eyes for the value of scholarly research: scholars see discrepancies, and reveal information, which faith-practitioners can't see, simply because their training has not learned to see and tolerate such discrepancies. So, scholarly studies and practicing Buddhism are not anti-thetical. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:48, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

@Robertinventor: I understand what you are saying. From a Buddhist perspective you want the article to represent the truth. However Wikipedia doesn't really care about truth, it cares about verifiability and neutral point of view - and those are not just guidelines on Wikipedia but fundamental policies. Neutral point of view means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views which have been published by reliable sources on a topic - and king amongst those "reliable sources" are peer-reviewed academic publications.

In articles on religious topics people often object to an academic critical, historical treatment because in their view such analysis discriminates against their religious beliefs, or excludes important insiders points of view. But other points of view can, and often should, be mentioned if they can be documented by notable, reliable sources. If you want to try and include the sources you mention, try writing sentences like this: "Certain notable traditional Buddhist teachers (such as Lama Soandso and Geshe Kakhaganga) believe This and That, and also teach that This and That have been tenets of Buddhism from its earliest days; however, modern religious scholars and historians (such as Dr. Buddhologist's textual analysis and Prof. Iconoclast's historical work) the majority of academics now say say such and such and that the This and That Sutra was only written in the 7th century." (Of course in doing this you also need to be careful to stick to that other fundamental pillar of Wikipedia policy: No Original Research.) On Wikipedia you certainly can't say or imply something is true because that's what e.g. "the learned lama and master His Eminence the Ven. 10th Geshe Norbu Rinpoche" taught or wrote. (For more on all this see: Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth.)

Please don't think that I'm personally coming from a particularly "Western perspective" - I'm just pointing out that's what the rules are here and as you are very unlikely to get them changed, just learn to work with them, or round them and you can include all significant views, even if academics don't agree with them (though you'll have to include their views too). BTW I've been a practising Buddhist for almost 50 years, most of that time in Buddhist communities in Asia where I still live. Cheers. -- Chris Fynn (talk) 13:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Chris Fynn No not at all, not wanting it to represent the "truth". Sorry to have caused that confusion, I didn't mean it like that.

Indeed that's my main objection against Joshua Jonathan's edits. That he writes from the perspective of a small group of Western academics - who don't represent a consensus even amongst Western academics and writes their views into the articles as "truth". For instance in 4 noble truths as it now is, he has written:

"Only as late as the fifth century CE came[sic] the four truths to be identified as the central teaching of the Buddha Carol Anderson notes that the four truths are missing in critical passages in the canon,"

But no way do we have a consensus even amongst Western academics on this point. Selwyn Cousins, a respected Western Buddhist scholar, wrote a critical examination of Carol Anderson's thesis in which he found many flaws.

And we have the Thai scholar, Prayudh Payutto who argues strongly, from evidence of the methods used to memorize the sutras and from the evidence that they started to memorize his teachings while the Buddha was still alive, and the ability of monks nowadays to memorize all 16,000 pages of the Pali Canon word for word - that they may be preserved essentially unchanged.

And it is a carefully argued thesis. The "discrepancies" the Westerners say they've found - they can be explained in other ways. For instance some of the teachings in the Pali Canon, he says, probably predate the Buddha's teachings, incorporating stories from before his time. And of course with some words changed and sentences added here and there in the four and half centuries before they were writtendown.

He is not claiming that the Pali Canon is a verbatim transcript of the words of the Buddha as he spoke. But that it represents pretty exactly his teachings as memorized by the monks during his lifetime and as rehearsed in the first great council after he died. So adapted for memorization sure. And incorporating earlier stories. And some of it remembered long after the events. But - still - that it represents the teachings as the monks memorized it while he was alive and soon nafter he died, with his teachings fresh in their minds. And with some of them also especially noted for their clear memories just like modern monks. And with the opportunity to check their understanding with the Buddha before he died.

It's a reasonable thesis, you can't say that it is "faith blind". If you call that thesis "faith blind" you have to rule out all Western theology as sources in articles on Christianity.

There is no way that you can say that Carol Anderson is "right" here. She is just putting forward a thesis, that's all. And so is Prayudh Payutto. And Wikipedia shouldn't present either of them as the truth. That's the very point that I've been arguing.

Not at all saying that the Eastern scholarship is correct. Just that it is as valid as the Western scholarship.

And when I said that to have experience of meditation when writing about the Buddhist sutras of meditation can't hurt and may help - there again I don't mean that you meditate to understand the truth and put that truth into your books from your direct experience. Of course some do, but in that case it is clearly a primary source.

But, I mean there - in a much more ordinary sense of a scholar studying the Pali canon for instance - that just as it is helpful to have sown seeds and watered plants to understand books about gardening, it helps to have meditated to understand books about meditation, which is what many of the sutras are. I.e. - that it is less likely that they will be confused in their understanding of what the sutras say because they have direct experience of its subject matter. In this case they are secondary sources because they are not writing about their own experiences, they are writing about what the sutras say. But informed by their own attempts to put those teachings into practice. I'm just saying here - that it is not a disadvantage to meditate, when you study books about meditation - and doesn't make you biased if you do that - and that it might be occasionally helpful if they have experienced themselves some of the things described in the texts.

Just as in the West - it's not right to say that all Buddhist teachers and Buddhist practitioners are "faith blind" any more than all Christians. And there are some that have most eccentric ideas that the promulgate as "Buddhism" and some that may be inspired but are clearly primary sources. Same as in the West with Christianity. But they also have their equivalent of our theologians, in the Eastern traditions, who are critical and careful and scholarly.

So the thesis we are putting forward here is simply that the very best of the Eastern scholars and the very best of their equivalent of our theologians can be treated as secondary sources here on equal footing with the Western academics. And the reason for this RfC is that Joshua Jonathan and a few others are arguing against this thesis, which to many of us seems so obvious we can't understand why it has been challenged. Robert Walker (talk) 14:51, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

This is were a quote is relevant:

"However, the four noble truths do not always appear in stories of the Buddha's enlightenment where we might expect to find them. This feature may indicate that the four noble truths emerged into the canonical tradition at a particular point and slowly became recognized as the first teaching of the Buddha. Speculations about early and late teachings must be made relative to other passages in the Pali canon because of a lack of supporting extratextual evidence. Nonetheless, it is still possible to suggest a certain historical development of the four noble truths within the Pali canon. What we will find is a doctrine that came to be identified as the central teaching of the Buddha by the time of the commentaries in the fifth century C.E." (Anderson 1999, p.55-56)

Notice the usage of terms like "speculation" and "suggest". It marks true scholarship: a scholar explains what makes them think so (see also Gombrich 2009 chapter 7)
As for Prayudh Payutto: this sounds quite different from what you said earlier. Nevertheless, scholars like Schayer, Frauwallner, Conze, Norman, Schmithausen, Vetter, Gombrich, Bronkhorst and Wynne, to name only a few, argue that the Pali Canon has internal incongruencies which betray a development of doctrine. For example, the difference between calm and insight, to name a famous one, as already note in 1937 by Lamotte.
Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:59, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Scholar is a scholar, nobody cares if he/she comes from West or East, South or North. I can't understand how you are still ranting about this. I think the problem lies in your own conception about some "evil Western scholarship", which in truth doesn't even exist. I am sure anybody will affirm that. There are just scholars, that's all. Robert Walker, if I were you, I'd study the difference between primary sources and secondary sources, not about the geographical location of each scholar.

I hope that you stop bringing up continuously things that you have already been answered to. I really appreciate your interest and passion on this topic, RobertInventor, but going around and around all the circles that have just previously been discussed, in my opinion you are coming pretty close to WP:IDHT. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:34, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

That's the very problem though. In your use of these citations in wikipedia, you don't say that they "speculate" or "suggest". You don't say that Anderson speculates that the four noble truths weren't present in early Buddhist teachings. You just say that "Carol Anderson notes that only by the time of the commentaries, in the fifth century CE, did the four truths come to be identified as the central teaching of the Buddha". That is not scholarly

What I said is consistent with what I said earlier. Prayudh Payutto maintains that the Pali Canon is unchanged except for a few words and sentences since the time of the first great council held immediately after the Buddha died. He also maintains, on basis of internal evidence that the monks started to memorize the teachings of the Buddha after the death of the teacher who instigated Jainism, an event that happened while the Buddha was still alive. He doesn't maintain that the teachings are verbatim transcriptions of what Buddha said. And what he says is of consistent with his other view that some of the teachings that they memorized in this way predate the Buddha, and so explain the apparent presence of simpler teachings within the canon with recognizable coherent textual differences. In his view - if I understand it right - those simpler teachings identified by scholars predate the Buddha. That seems a reasonable hypothesis to me. I don't see why a wikipedia article should present Anderson's hypothesis as "the truth" saying "she notes that"... and not mention Prajudh Payutto's hypothesis. Or indeed any other hypotheses.

Anderson's book has only had 18 citations in Google scholar, not that many for a book. That doesn't strongly support your view in these talk page discussions that her thesis has been generally accepted as the "verified" truth. Note that the four noble truths article nowhere mentions Payutto's name, either in the body of the text or in the citations. Robert Walker (talk) 09:42, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Let's try it from this angle

OK folks, let me try this using a model that I'm more familiar with, Christianity (full disclosure: I am not a practicing Buddhist, I am merely interested in the topic, but I'm actually a mainstream Methodist Protestant). In that tradition, we have, of course, the equivalent of the Buddha in Jesus (OK, so I'm super-duper-oversimplifying, but stay with me here). We also have a core holy book called the Bible, that itself is highly debated as to whether it has historical accuracy, if it is literally or metaphorically true (or both), if it was inspired by God directly or if it was written by a series of Hebrew scholars and assorted disciples of Christ based on their own understanding of events - or some blend of the two. We also have a series of theologians and scholars who have wrestled with this tradition, both in Judaism and in Christianity, particularly Catholicism. So how are their works handled on WP and is there any value in comparing what WP Christianity is doing. There, they have even more hotly contested issues than here - the fundamentalists and the liberals (to say nothing of agnostics and atheists) along with the various sects within each major division all have huge differences of opinion (consider new earth creationism, just for starters). So, I suspect they have some standard procedures for determining what is considered a primary source (the Bible? Always? Sometimes? In certain contexts?) on WP, what is a secondary source, and how to distinguish "pop culture" books (by people like, for example, Joel Osteen) from books by respected scholars (like Augustine) and how someone who is a contemporary minister (perhaps Billy Graham) is compared to someone like Pope Francis. I'm going to ping them and see if anyone there can offer us some ideas on navigating religion in wiki-land. Montanabw^(talk) 18:02, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, all. I am I think the only elected lead coordinator in the history of the Christianity project, when we had an abortive attempt to try to organize that wildly varied area, and am more involved in broadly Christian and religion based topics than most others. It seems to me, once again, that the focus here is maybe a bit off, showing primary concern with the somewhat arbitrary and arguable primary-secondary-tertiary and less concern with what seems to me the more reasonable concern, which is utility and accessibility.

Regarding the comparison between Joel Osteen and Augustine, they don't honestly have a great deal of overlap between them, so that's not the best comparison. Billy Graham and Pope Francis is a bit closer, because both were academics to a degree as well as being leaders official or unofficial within their particular Christian communities. But they also rarely spoke on exactly the same topic, and they also tended to speak more for their individual traditions than for the independent academic community as a whole, and there are very few instances when they overlap. Both would be primarily useful and used as specifically exponents of the beliefs of their traditions, rather than as academic views on topics. There are more highly regarded academics in virtually any purely academic field either of them might ever have spoken of for independent views.

For a lot of the Biblical historical material, if a modern academic basically repeats the biblical text without modification, which happens rather a lot when there isn't much real independent evidence, there is no particular advantage to be gained by quoting a scholar who is basically paraphrasing a biblical text. Directly quoting the original text in such cases is I think more honest, in a way, as it is going with the source used by potentially multiple scholars but not given undue attention or authority or weight to one or more other scholars who are also just repeating what the bible says. If there are serious and widespread and significant differences between either translations or interpretations of texts, then probably the most intellectually honest approach would be to say, "The Bible says (x), which scholars (a and b) say means (y), and scholars (c and d) say means (z)". That approach is generally more neutral. Applied to this case, so far as I can tell anyway, the number of purely academic sources is probably small, and most of the academic material relating to theology is more or less repeated from one or more of the equivalents of Augustine, early reputable internal authorities. If those analogs to Augustine are generally well regarded by the relevant existing practitioners and basically say the same thing, it is generally best to use the sources from which the ideas spring initially. That makes it easier to find alternate views, because they tend to be compared to the first proponents of theories. If there are significant differences between practitioners, using something like the quote I provided above is probably best, although there are questions of WEIGHT and FRINGE in some cases which have to be taken into account.

But, in general, speaking at least for myself, the best way to proceed is to find the reference sources highly regarded by the academic community and see roughly what they say. If there are differences not explainable by author bias, developments since one or more sources were published or other such concerns, average the weight out. And, yes, once again, the sources used by academic reference sources in their citations or bibliographies are probably the best ones for us to use as well. In most cases, there exists some specific reason why those individual sources were included in a bibliography which makes them preferable to others. Whatever reasons they might be, if they are good enough for the best print reference sources, that generally should make them good enough for us, at least for the material which is covered in those print reference sources. John Carter (talk) 18:38, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for sharing this highly insightful perspective. Unfortunately, as you might have noticed,our discussion here is stuck on a much more primitive level with editors categorically and repeatedly saying things like ["I am opposed to the citation of Buddhist teachers without any western academic credentials in a Buddhist related field."] or ["The Dalai Lama is a primary source."] and others basically deleting and completely rewriting long-standing, well-sourced articles on these or similar grounds - which is, as you might know, where this discussion here originated from.

Anyway, i'd like to ask you something:

You recommend writing sentences like: "The Bible says (x), which scholars (a and b) say means (y), and scholars (c and d) say means (z)".

Frankly, to me it's not quite easy to make sense of this. Okay, the first part seams to be easy: "The Bible says". But wait, actually it's not that easy. There are different versions of the Bible, aren't there? There are also some dead sea scrolls i've heard of, apocrypha, different translations etc. Ok, but anyway, fairly easy to say sth like "The bible in its most widely spread version accepted by the catholoic church and lying on the bed stand of pope francis, available in its online version here or there says...fairly easy. Now the second part: "which scholars (a and b) say means (y), and scholars (c and d) say means (z)." Hmmm... here's my problem: What exactly do you mean by "[What the bible] means"? Do you mean what Jesus actually meant by saying that? Or is it what god meant by saying this through Jesus? Or is it what the guy who actually wrote it meant? And, secondly, "mean" to whom? To the twelve disciples? To the early christian communities? To the catholic church? To Protestants, Baptists, Orthodox, AND nowadays, or in the early days? What is it? Or do you mean something like "objectively means" - whatever that would be.

Now let's look at the example WP:RNPOV provides: "Certain Frisbeetarianists (such as Rev. Carlin) believe This and That, and also believe that This and That have been tenets of Frisbeetarianism from its earliest days; however, influenced by the findings of modern historians and archaeologists (such as Dr. Investigate's textual analysis and Prof. Iconoclast's carbon-dating work) certain sects — calling themselves Ultimate Frisbeetarianists — still believe This, but instead of That now believe Something Else."

I hope you get the idea: The difference between the two sentences points to a very important question in the debate surrounding Joshua Jonathans rewrite attempts and i would be very intererested to hear your opinion: The question is: What should an article about a religious concept like Karma in Buddhism actually be about? How much WP:weight should be assigned to different aspects and perspectives:

From the edits and the ongoing debate about Karma in Buddhism and Four noble truths i get the impression that Joshua wants to assign the most weight to what scholars think what the "original teachings of the Budhha" were and what scholars think what they "objectively" mean.

This approach, at least the second part in my view is fatally flawed, because (not only, of course) in relgious matters there can be no such thing as "objectivity".

I have written about this question already at talk:Karma in Buddhism so i copy the following from there:

To me it is not so important what the Buddha or the early Buddhist Sangha originally thought and taught, but what Buddists think. And by that i mean primarilly what they think (and teach and practice) about concepts like Karma and the 4NT but also - to take it one step further and illustrate my point by means of (slightly) exageratiing: For me it is even more important what Buddhists think what the original teachings of the Buddha were than what western academics think what "objectively" were those teachings.

Please think about it: After all, as our well thought out and thoroughly debated famous very first sentence about Buddhism in this wonderful digital encyclopedia states (emphasis added):

"Buddhism is a [...] religion that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, who is commonly known as the Buddha [...]"

So for me it seems quite obvious that an article about a Buddhist concept like karma should first and foremost report what the believers (of different traditions respectively) think about the concept, how it is taught and how it is incorporated into their practices. And by the way, the Buddhism article - right after the lead - continues with a traditional account of the life of the Buddha - not an historical (!)

Of course there should be room for historical critical analysis and comparative studies, which is what (western) academics seem to be mostly occupied whith. But if you think about what matters to the world, i.e. the reader? How does karma, i.e. the concept of karma, not the "real" thing, come into the world, leaving the ivory tower? It is through its workings in the minds of Buddhist believers. So it is our foremost duty to report what believers say, think, do - again: not (western) scholars!

Of course, in order to report this accurately there are many ways and one of them - undoubtedly one that Wikipedia actively encourages - is to use academic secondary or tertiary sources (that report those beliefs).

sorry for the longish post...too tired right now to be more concise...goodnight all,

For the most part, the various early versions of the Bible have all been consulted in the standard texts which are taken into account in the most recent published versions in English. Variant texts are, of course, widely known, but in most cases they are only minor variations and obvious typos or later additions or variations. John Carter (talk) 16:57, 16 December 2014 (UTC)Andi 3ö (talk) 03:32, 16 December 2014 (UTC) (this lenghty comment was not written by Andi 3ö according to the logs)

Read Chris Fynn's comment here about books attributed to Tibetan lamas actually being ghostwritten. Also, citing other wikis like Rigpa Wiki doesn't count as being well sourced.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 04:05, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Whoever wrote the above comment (I checked the logs and it didn't match to "Andi 3ö"), here's my response:

The Catechism expresses the official dogma of the Church. When we are saying that "scholars (a and b) say means (y)", we are simply reporting outcomes / conclusions of their research, not any official dogma of any church.

Dead sea scrolls? True, they do exist but they are not part of the Canon (the books that constitute the Bible).

Whether the Bible represents the word of God or the conceptions of the author ain't relevant here: we can just simply hold to the scripture itself. Speculation about the nature of the scripture is a whole other debate. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:34, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

You might also note that it is standard academic consensus that pretty much the entire New Testament other than a few epistles of Paul were at best ghostwritten, if not being clearly written under false names. Such distinctions are considered of no relevance whatsoever in Biblical studies, because the texts are accepted as relating the truth according to the tradition. The exact details of who wrote which words is very rarely if ever considered of any importance in any religious field if the texts themselves are considered highly regarded or a source of what might be called doctrinal information. John Carter (talk) 16:57, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Victoria, if you read his comment, please also see my reply. It's no secret at all that the Dalai Lama's English wasn't good when he first came to the West, and many of his books are co-authored e.g. with Jeffrey Hopkins. His co-author is himself a respected Tibetologist and co-authorship is no obstacle to citing works as secondary sources. In the case of books by other Tibetan lamas, you would look at it case by case. For instance if the author himself had good English and oversaw the process of editorship, contributed sections, and checked the finished book himself, then it is again a reasonable source. Or if the co-author is a respected scholar.

In the case of the Rigpa wiki discussion, he didn't cite the wiki, but rather, a quotation hosted on the wiki. That's a bit like using a quotation from Wikiquotes. The quotation is of Ringu Tulku who is a notable member of the Rime movement to present the teachings of all the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism as understood within the schools themselves, without bias. The author is a good author to cite on the subject. The main question therefore is, is this an accurate quotation from him? It's a good point, yes. But a minor point that Dorje suggested we leave for later discussion.

If we can establish first, that some Eastern sources are acceptable as secondary sources, we can then leave for later discussion what particular sources to use. I.e. let's focus first on whether there are any acceptable Eastern sources. Robert Walker (talk) 10:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

A wiki still is not a reliable source, even for quotations from others. It would be acceptable if the quote were sourced directly from himself. And I once again ask everyone to drop the apparent fixation on the primary-secondary-tertiary distinction. There is no reason why this encyclopedia should hold itself to any more demanding terms than the most highly regarded print encyclopedias, which so far as I can see often use primary sources in some contexts. Also, I have to agree with the translation issue mentioned above. I have seen how it has been said that several of the Dalai Lama's original texts have had certain material relating specifically to his rather negative views on homosexuality omitted in the English translations, and that would be important for content relating to that issue specifically, but there is no reason to believe that an authorized translation is less than acceptable for our purposes otherwise. So far as I can tell, the lengthy print reference works are still broadly considered the best guides for our purposes. Brill is, apparently, coming out with a new edition of its Encyclopedia of Buddhism in 2015. That would when it comes out be maybe the best indicator of our content here. John Carter (talk) 16:57, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

John Carter, just a few of points by way of background, may be helpful. First, yes, there are Buddhist equivalents of Augustine - such as Nagarjuna, Aryadeva (second and third century CE). But - there is also a tradition of scholarship that built up after that. There have been scholars writing works on these topics and discussing them through first India until the end of the twelfth century in Nalanda then in Tibet, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Korea, Japan, China etc. The Eastern scholars are continuing in this tradition. The Dalai Lama for instance, in his books - he represents a tradition of scholarship of this type that continued in Tibet without interruption since the fall of Nalanda University in the C12. So the Eastern scholars are coming to the subject with this background of a continuous tradition of previous works on the subject. For the most part we in the West are unaware of these works.

Then another point is, there is critical evaluation of the Buddha's teachings built in. So, somewhat less tendency I think just to repeat and paraphrase the teachings. The Buddhist teachings are not regarded as "revealed truth". There is no creed, in the sense, that there is nothing that any Buddhist is required to recite, to say "I believe this and I believe that and I believe the other thing...". He taught many teachings in great detail, at least so it's thought by most Buddhists. But he also taught that we shouldn't take accept any of his many teachings on his "say so". But examine them for ourselves. And also should listen to other teachers too, in any tradition, but again not accept anything they say either on their say so. So there is this background of critical evaluation of everything he said built into Buddhism.

Also, finally, it's worth noting I think that most of the Western academics have been brought up in a society where one of the Abrahamic religions is the "state religion". So - that makes a difference I think. And we also don't have a tradition of meditation here in quite the same way that they have in the West. We do have a tradition of a contemplative life of course, seclusion in the desert as with the desert fathers, and so on. But not the detailed methods of the Eastern meditative traditions. As far as I know there are no surviving teachings on how to meditate in the Old Testament, or New Testament (I don't know about the Koran). At any rate certainly not the detailed treatment that you get in the sutras. I think both of these lead to a difference of perspective when Western academics examine the Eastern scholarly texts. Robert Walker (talk) 11:29, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks John. I've got a concrete example, from Karma in Buddhism. Dorje's last version had a section on "Centrality to Buddhist thought". It said:

"The theory of karmic action and result (karmaphala) is one of the foundational concepts of Buddhist philosophy. In the Buddhist view, developing a genuine, experiential understanding of karmic action and result—how all of one's actions will have a corresponding result—is an essential aspect of the Buddhist path.

Note:Karma is a foundational concept in Buddhist philosophy and it is essential to understand karma to follow the Buddhist path. For example:

* Contemporary scholar Ulrich Timme Kragh states: "the Buddhist theory of action and result (karmaphala) is fundamental to much of Buddhist doctrine, because it provides a coherent model of the functioning of the world and its beings, which in turn forms the doctrinal basis for the Buddhist explanations of the path of liberation from the world and its result, nirvāṇa."

* Étienne Lamotte states: “The teaching of karma, or action, forms the cornerstone of the whole Buddhist doctrine: action is the ultimate explanation of human existence and of the physical world, and it is in terms of karma that the Buddhist masters have constructed their philosophy.”

* Tibetan Buddhist teacher Tsongkhapa states: “Attaining certain knowledge of the definiteness, or nondeceptiveness, of karma and its effects is called the correct viewpoint of all Buddhists and is praised as the foundation of all virtue.”

* Jeffrey Kotyk states: Karma is indeed the foundation of Buddhist thought [...] Being that understanding karma is absolutely essential for a practitioner of Buddhadharma it would be wise for any interested individual to thoroughly study the subject.

* Ken McLeod states: [...] the principle of karma is crucially important for our understanding of why we practice and what happens when we practice.

* Joseph Goldstein states: "According to the law of karma, the only things that can be said to truly belong to us are our actions and their results; the results of our actions follow us like a shadow, or, to use an ancient image, like the wheel of the oxcart following the foot of the ox. This principle is so fundamental and far-reaching that it was emphasized again and again by the Buddha and by the great enlightened beings up until the present."

* Ajahn Sucitto states: "Right view, then, focuses on cause and effect. Through noticing the results of our thoughts, attitudes, and actions, we learn what gives the best results—hence a path gets established beneath our own feet."

* Reginald A. Ray states: "Karma’s central place in the tradition is shown by the Buddha's own enlightenment, which consisted of nothing but seeing the full range and extent of karma-that nothing in the universe stands outside karma’s domain. Even the concept of the independent, autonomous "I" we so dearly cherish is nothing but the product of karmic forces." }}

As one scholar states:

The Buddhist theory of action and result (karmaphala) is fundamental to much of Buddhist doctrine, because it provides a coherent model of the functioning of the world and its beings, which in turn forms the doctrinal basis for the Buddhist explanations of the path of liberation from the world and its result, nirvāṇa.

The renowned translator Étienne Lamotte states:

“The teaching of karma, or action, forms the cornerstone of the whole Buddhist doctrine: action is the ultimate explanation of human existence and of the physical world, and it is in terms of karma that the Buddhist masters have constructed their philosophy.”

Tibetan Buddhist teacher Je Tsongkhapa emphasizes the importance of understanding karma in order to follow the Buddhist path:

“Attaining certain knowledge of the definiteness, or nondeceptiveness, of karma and its effects is called the correct viewpoint of all Buddhists and is praised as the foundation of all virtue.”

Karmic actions are considered to be the engine which drives the cycle of uncontrolled rebirth (samsara) for sentient beings; correspondingly, a complete understanding of karmic action and result enables beings to free themselves from samsara and attain liberation.

The theory of karmic action and result is related to other key concepts in Buddhism, such as dependent origination and the four noble truths.

Anybody read all of this?

I've replaced it with:

"Karma and karmaphala are fundamental concepts in Buddhism. The concepts of karma and karmaphala explain how our intentional actions keep us tied to rebirth in samsara, whereas the Buddhist path, as exemplified in the Noble Eightfold Path, shows us the way out of samsara."

You don't need eight quotes, with three of them repeated, to make the point that karma is an essential concept in Buddhism (and even that is not a precise statement, since it seems that the concept of karma was of minor importance in early Buddhism; tanha was more important. As noted by Vetter, Schmithausen, buswell and Matthews). It's like saying "The White House is white, followed by eigth quotes which say that the White House is white (is it, by the way?)

What is relevant here, is the question: why is karma relevant? (this is an unintended alliteration, or something like that) Answer, from these quotes: because it's part of Buddhist doctrine, because it explains the workings of the world, because it leads us to practice. Yeah, yeah, yeah... What does it explain, how does it lead us to practice? Simple: karma keeps us tied to samsara, which sucks; following the Buddhist path gets us out of samsara. That's what's relevant! And that's what's clearly voiced by scholars like Vetter and Gombrich:

Gombrich (2009), "What the Buddha Thought", p, 21, 22-23:

"The Buddha's teaching of karma was a moral exhortation. So it is intended to be seen from the front, to be taken as an answer to the question 'How should I behave?' Since people are lazy, and tend to be more interested in saying, 'How did I get into this mess - surely it was not my fault?', the tendency has always been, probably from the Buddha's day until now, to see the same doctrine from the other end, backwards. Thus, it is easy for belief in karma to become a kind of fatalism, the very reverse of what the Buddha meant. In this perverse form of the doctrine, people say, 'This is my karma', when what they mean, to use the original terminology, is 'This is the result of my karma.' [...] In practice, people tend to apply the theory backwards: when one has an illness and no treatment seems to do any good, one starts saying that this must be an effect of bad karma. The Buddha hirnself listed the effects of karma as one of the four things which are not to be thought about, because thinking about them will drive you crazy. Presumably this warning is directed to unenlightened people, because the second of the three knowledges which are said to come with Enlightenment is the ability to see how beings are reborn in accordance with the moral quality of their deeds (yathi-kammiipaga). So he witnessed the workings of karma, but we cannot. And what he saw convinced him that nothing could be as urgent as putting a stop to the whole process." (emphasis mine)

Vetter (1988), "The Ideas and Practices of Early Buddhism", p.79-80:

"That one cannot be sure ofone's behavior in a future existence can be demonstrated with SN 3.21, the sutta on light and darkness. It still reflects the old structure that good or bad conduct in the world of mankind leads either to heaven or to the underworld [...] According to this sutta neither the social environment nor a beautiful or ugly body determine how one will think and act. Neither is this determined by previous thoughts and acts, if we, according to later developments, assume that karma also is the cause of a birth in a high or low class family etc.. We will see in chapter 15 that changes do occur in respect to this concept.
The idea that nothing is determined in the future may have been one of the Buddha's motives to strive for salvation. But he also seems to have been clear that many persons were impressed neither by this nor by other motives.

So, this are two respected scholars, who clearly explain what the relevance is of karma: get out of samsara. I could add these quotes as notes to the article, but I think it's unnecessary: the message is clear. Sources and page-numbers are given, both books can be found as a pdf on the web, so people can read them for themselves (I can really recommand them). They are the kind of scholars that are summarised, and even quoted (...) by scholars like Gethin. Top of the bill.

And, for those with personal favorites: Gombrich was a student of Walpola Rahula.

As an aside: "The theory of karmic action and result" as translation of "karmaphala", is a neologism, introduced by Dorje. Kind of WP:OR. No source uses it. A better phrase is "karma-and-fruit", or simply "karmaphala", once the term has been explained.

As a second aside: how can one achieve an "experiential understanding" of karma? It's an "imponderable" doctrine. The Buddha is said to have "seen" the workings of karma; how does an unenlightened person achieve an "experiential understanding" of karma? None of these sources speaks of "experiential understanding"; "experiential" is interpretation from the editor.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:45, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan - you have rewritten his section embedding the footnotes in the text itself. There is no issue at all with having numerous quotes in footnotes. His footnote c here could perhaps have been separated out into eight separate citations, but I think the way he presents it is helpful.

His footnote is here: Footnote: Karma is a foundational concept in Buddhist philosophy and it is essential to understand karma to follow the Buddhist path - list of eight citations given by Dorje to back up this statement.

That of course is one of the things that has been raised over and over in these discussions. There is no justification at all for removing all the quotations from the footnotes. Whenever you justify this action you refer to policies about quotations in the body of the article which are not relevant. Absolutely wikipedia articles are permitted to have quotations in the footnotes, and it is often recommended to do so to help the reader and other editors.

The section itself is here: Centrality to Buddhist Thought. He has three quotations, one of which is just a single sentence. And next section has no quotations. I don't find that excessive. And I find the section well written and easy to read. And it helps to see these different expressions of the idea.

As for its centrality - he gives many quotes saying that it is central. You have come up with some sources saying it isn't. But their views are not consensus, and most Buddhists haven't even heard of them. Is this your justification for removing this section, that in your belief Karma is not central to Buddhist thought, or, that you believe it shouldn't be?

The article to my mind is constantly POV pushing this view that Karma is not really important in Buddhism, and your other idea also, that somehow karma and rebirth is caused purely by intention without action. I don't mean intentionally, but as someone who doesn't have that view, then it feels like the author of the article is preaching to me and trying to convince me of this view.

The sources you give on this, we've already discussed on the talk page, don't claim this. Intention colours action but intention by itself doesn't cause karmic effects. That's like saying that if you stand at the bottom of a flight of stairs and wish strongly enough that you were at the top, that has the same karmic effect as actually walking up the stairs (that e.g. you can't touch the ground and are out of breath) to use Prayudh Payutto's example of the immediate effects of karma in its simplest form. And - we can all of us experience Karma in this simple form. In its simplest form it just says, that actions have consequences. Though only an enlightened one can have direct insight into the long term and subtle effects of karma, in all its details, anyone can see this simple statement is true. So, we can all start there. So then you can also start thinking about more subtle consequences, such as effects of lying with intent to decieve, for instance, or hurtful actions towards others motivated by anger, how they take you into situations that cause you problems, and obscure your mind also. Then can begin to see, that this might also have effects in future lives also, as a possibility, without having detailed understanding of how that happens exactly. You don't need to be enlightened, at all, to see this. So, it's in some ways far simpler, in other ways far more subtle than most realize. Of course this is just by way of meta talk, in the hope that talking about ideas of karma like this, it can help to better understand the sources. Not for wikipedia articles, none of my comments are meant for article content! Robert Walker (talk) 16:41, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

There is also, however, no obvious need to have multiple footnotes in the text itself, and a very real possibility of overkill, unless there are specific reasons, beyond simply being from reputable authorities or scholars, why the specific quotations are each individually relevant enough for inclusion in the article. Overkill is overkill. I am aware that there are multiple traditions in Buddhism, and that there may well be specific individual variations on the meanings of karma in separate traditions. If such do exist, then they should probably be mentioned in the text of the article, or perhaps in the texts of whichever articles deal with those specific traditions. It may be easy to read, but it may also be a violation of WP:UNDUE. And it is not our place to try to pass judgement on academics or respected scholars of any traditions, except in those cases where those concerns are given significant attention in reliable sources on their own. It is probably more OR on the part of any of us to say that the most respected sources out there are in some way less than optimal, unless we have specific reliable sources indicating exactly how and why they are less than optimal.

There are already a huge number and variety of articles relating to Jesus in wikipedia. That is to be expected. There are, potentially, just as many articles, real and potential, on Buddhism, or, for that matter, Hinduism, Shinto, Taoism, Confucianism, and other eastern traditions. Where there are significant differences within any of those traditions, we can and could cover those matters as well. But the best place to start is to try to make sure that main articles on any major topics within any field meet our standards of policies and guidelines, and then, as appropriate, create spinout articles discussing the individual variations within those broad traditions, just as we are doing and trying to do in Christianity and other western faiths. Honestly, at the risk of repeating myself, I tend to think that the most highly regarded academic reference source in the world, Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism, is coming out with a new edition next year, now potentially perhaps only a few weeks away. Taking that into account, I would think the best thing to do in the short term is just try to develop the content to a reasonable level of quality and not worry too much about WEIGHT and other concerns. Where possible following the lead of the existing Jones Encyclopedia of Religion and Brill's Religion Past and Present regarding the topics they cover is probably the best thing to do in the interim. Then, when Brill's new encyclopedia does come out, have people review it and its contents, and then discuss and make changes as required. That is pretty much the procedure which would be followed with the content of any other religious groups, and I can't see any reason not to follow the same procedure here. John Carter (talk) 16:57, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Again, what on earth are you going on about some "Western academics"? I have asked you this even earlier, "isn't there Eastern academics as well"? We do not care about the geographical location, religion, gender or race here in Wikipedia, do we? Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:34, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Well - the thing about the footnotes - this is different from the main text use of quotes - these lists of quote also help alert editors to the available sources. Here we have Joshua Jonathan who in his bold edit removed both these sections, reduced both to a single sentence "paraphrase". And here we see that the sections he deleted had many sources listed in the citations. Although it didn't have any effect in this case - in most cases it would give an editor at least some pause for thought before deleting them, to see all these citations in the footnotes. And would normally be a flag that this is soemthing that should be discussed before it is deleted.

I've seen many articles here in wikipedia that have a large number of citations for a single sentence. The main difference here is just that he also includes quotations for those citations, while many articles don't do that. But the quotations don't get in the way of the main body of the text. And they help the editor to verify quickly that indeed, many scholars do indeed say, for instance that Karma is central to Buddhism, and that Karma is not a judgement.

I've just looked up Brills encyclopedia - "Volume I, which will appear in 2015, surveys Buddhist literatures, scriptural and nonscriptural, and offers discussions of the languages of Buddhist traditions and the physical bases (manuscripts, epigraphy, etc.) available for the study of Buddhist literatures.". Doesn't sound like it will cover the issues here except in passing?

With Joshua Jonathan's article, the problem isn't at all that he mentions the Western scholars who have put forward various alternative theories on how much of the Pali canon dates back to the Buddha and what the original teachings were. Those of course should be mentioned. It is rather, that he then says in the article that the scholars "note that" ... or just says outright whatever their thesis is as "the truth". No way should an encyclopedia say that unless you are 100% sure that that is the case, everyone in agreement on it. Here there are other academics that challenge what they say even here in the West, and others also in the East.

It should be presented rather in the manner of Gospel#Dating. I.e. present all the ideas and theories. Definitely should mention Prajudh Payutto for instance, as a prominent scholar who maintains that the Pali Canon represents the original teachings of the Buddha essentially unchanged apart from a few words and sentences, since the first great council that took place immediately after he died. But instead he has woven a consistent picture out of the writings of a few selected scholars and presents this to the reader as "the truth". And simply doesn't mention any other ideas or theories.

So in this section Four_Noble_Truths#Critical_Historical_Analysis he only presents quotes and citations that support his thesis that the four noble truths were not present in the original teachings. He doesn't attempt a survey of the different views, but presents a single consistent editorial narrative for the reader.

And the thing is - that before these edits we had a perfectly good, mature article, in the case of Karma in Buddhism then it has been there for months, hardly any changes - and had been worked on by editors for years. There was no need at all to totally rewrite it to fit this particular set of views, and to remove all the material he removed from it. He could have just added a section to it covering the details of Anderson's thesis. And other authors also with varying interpretations of to what extent the Buddhist teachings originally were about Karma. As for Gospel#Dating.

And also as Andi has said it is surely incontroversial that most, almost all, present day Buddhists regard the teachings of Karma as central to Buddhism. And that we need an article here to present Karma as it is understood in contemporary Buddhism whatever you might think about these theories - which are no more than theories.

What is the sense in writing out of the article the majority of the content describing Karma as it is understood in contemporary Buddhism, whether you think it is historically accurate to the Pali Canon or not? He dismisses this as "popular Buddhism". That's like dismmissing Resurrection of Jesus - the interpretation as "resurrection in the body" I mean - as "Popular Christianity" and so not deserving detailed discussion in wikipedia, but to be summarized in a single sentence. And what's more he presents just the one theory, it's like taking the view that what happened was an empty tomb + mass hysteria - and presenting that view only. And then deleting a section saying that Resurrection of the body is central to Christian thought on the basis that this is "popular Christianity" and that Wikipedia should be about the academic scientific findings - and then also ignoring any academics who believe that resurrection of the body may have actually happened. And deleting all sources that discuss the resurrection of the body in detail on the grounds that this is "popular Christianity" and should not be covered.

It's not an exact analogy, just the closest I can think of between two rather different religions. But Karma is undoubtedly central to modern Buddhist thought and to delete a section saying this, based on this thesis is kind of similar. And note - his revision of the four noble truths article, and deletion of much of the existing content is based on a single book, which has only 18 citations in Google scholar. I think that is not really enough to establish it as a "verified truth" that has swept the world of Buddhist scholarship by storm. I also turned up a review by respected Buddhist scholar Lance Cousins that found many flaws in her thesis according to his view. It's not that impressive to support so bold an editorial claim. Especially for a book, and one of thousands of books on Buddhism.

I think it is reasonable enough, on this evidence, to call this a "small group of academics". As Dorje says above "Jonathan has re-written the article to emphasize his understanding of a small group of academics.". Robert Walker (talk) 10:17, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear RobertInventor, I think one of the problems with your conception of things is this non-existent division between "Western scholars" and "the other scholars". I can assure you, most editors don't care whether the scholar is Western or Eastern, Southern or Northern. Scholar is a scholar, and we do not judge anyone on the basis of geographical location. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:34, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear Jayaguru-Shishya - yes that's what I always assumed. But recently Joshua Jonathan rewrote Karma in Buddhism and Four Noble Truths to emphasize the work of a small group of Western academics - presenting their views such as that the original teachings of the Buddha didn't include the four noble truths and didn't mention Karma as presently understood. And in his treatment of Karma he removed the section on the centrality of Karma to Buddhism, and reduced other important sections such as Karma not a judgement to a single sentence paraphrase (originally he removed it altogether). The RfC came out of that - because his reason for doing this was that he regards western scholarship as more suitable for deciding how to set out the content in wikipedia, and as secondary sources for the articles, than the writings of the likes of the Dalai Lama, Walpola Rahula, and Prayudh Payutto which he regards as primary sources. You can take a look at those articles to see what the result was. Robert Walker (talk) 21:56, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Category:Thai Buddhist temples outside of Thailand

Please help with the discussion of Category:Thai Buddhist temples outside of Thailand at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 November 17. – Fayenatic London 14:07, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Nichiren Buddhist Association of America

Does anyone have more information on the above mentioned group? The only thing I could gather is that the organisation is relatively new, but apart from links to its own homepage I could not gather much information so far. How many members does it have? --Catflap08 (talk) 21:00, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Proposal for talkpage-restrictions for Robert Walker

I've made a concrete proposal for talkpage-restrictions for Robert Walker: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposal: max 1,500 bytes a day for Robert Walker. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:45, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Please note, this will mean I can't submit the DRN Notice which I have been preparing about Joshua Jonathan's edits of mature articles on Buddhism. Robert Walker (talk) 13:17, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Result was no outcome and I've developed some Work arounds for lengthy talk page comments which should help in the future. Robert Walker (talk) 20:00, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Topic-ban proposal for Robert Walker

I have proposed a topic-ban at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Topic-ban proposal for Robert Walker (2). Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Are texts written by Buddhist writers and teachers that explain basic Buddhist concepts reliable secondary sources?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I propose that texts written by Buddhist writers and teachers that explain basic Buddhist concepts should be considered secondary sources as long as they meet the criteria specified in the guidelines (regardless of whether or not the writer has Western academic training). Do you support this? Dorje108 (talk) 21:22, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Support

• Support absolutely. Dorje108 (talk) 21:22, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
• Support unless texts are controversial or minority viewpoints or unless the author is a primary creator of doctrine or thought. If and/or when in doubt, just put "According to ...", and this puts to rest all problems. If someone wants to add a differing view, then another "According to" can be added as contrast. Most Buddhist theological historians and commentators are Buddhists, just as historically most Christian theological historians are Christian, etc. This is to be expected. Softlavender (talk) 06:07, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

(I'm goign to move Joshua Jonathan's comment here down to the discussion section as it is about the use of quotes, and the RfC is not about this at present, also doing same for my reply in my own Support statement)

• Support, absolutely. As an example, Walpola Rahula's scholarly book What the Buddha Taught - is widely regarded as one of the best short summaries of Therevadhan Buddhism in modern times. For another example, surely the brilliant Thai Scholar Prayudh Payutto is a secondary source. Similarly for Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is widely recognized for his scholarly understanding of the Tibetan texts, so he is a suitable source not because he is the Dalai Lama but because of his scholarly understanding of the vast archives of Tibetan texts, in all four schools. And this traditional scholarship, in Buddhism anyway - is critical and investigative, with a long lineage also as in the West (back to the ancient sixth century Nalanda University in India and earlier). The modern scholars in their traditions also adopt results from scientific research and archaeology, where appropriate, again just as in the West. So it needs to be decided on a case by case basis. There are popular teachers in Buddhism who are not scholars, of course, but I see no reason at all to exclude all traditionally educated Buddhists as secondary sources. NB If anyone wishes to comment on my statement here - please use discussion section! Robert Walker (talk) 20:23, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Comment For the background to this RfC see #Sources. If the writings of Tibetan scholars such as the Dalai Lama and Therevadhan scholars such as Walpola Rahula and Prayudh Payutto were regarded as primary sources, this would mean that they should be used sparingly in articles on Buddhism with preference always given to western academics like Peter Harvey and Richard Gombrich. Joshua Jonathan who opposes use of these and other Eastern scholars as secondary sources has done a couple of recent major rewrites to eliminate their use as citations throughout two mature articles on Buddhism and this is why the question arose. The idea of the RfC is to determine whether the best of the Eastern secondary sources can be treated on equal footing with the best of the Western scholars. I.e. if the RfC was supported, then particular uses of citations of course still need to be discussed on a case by case basis, just as for Western sources. See Recent re-writes of key concepts Robert Walker (talk) 13:14, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support We had similar discussions a couple of times already concerning buddhist topics. If we narrow the list of reliable sources on Buddhism down to those few individuals worldwide who were lucky enough to acquire a (paid) position in a western academic institution that allows them to conduct their research on Buddhism, we would end up with not much in hand. Also, an important underlying question is: Whom are we writing for? What does the reader want to know? After all this is WP and not an academic journal of buddhist studies or comparative religion. To me it seems quite obvious that most readers of an article about some Buddhist concept like, say, the Four Noble Truths, will primarily be interested in knowing what this concept means to practicing Buddhists (today) and not so much in the exact etymology of the name of the concept or when and where the concept first came about, whether or not it originates from the Buddha himself or which implications the concept had for medieval tibetan society. In short, a lot of the research questions of western academia will not be very relevant for WP readers interested in Buddhism. The interpretations of contemporary Buddhist authorities like the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh on the other hand will definitely be. Andi 3ö (talk) 02:22, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support: Authors from within the tradition are eminently suitable sources for relating the interpretation of a doctrine by their particular school or tradition. Such affiliations should be clearly identified rather than presented as representing all of Buddhism. The difficulty comes in establishing standards of authority, given that popularity rather than seniority tends to determine the recognition of authors of texts on Buddhism aimed at the general public. As long as doctrinal divisions are reflected in the text where such recognition is appropriate (i.e., there is an objective means of distinguishing them) and economy is observed in supplying references and quotes in the main text, I see no good reason to restrict acceptable sources to people who attended or are employed by universities or colleges in the West, but not the East. It might be instructive to compare the policies of Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity regarding the sourcing of theology that is specific to a particular denomination... there is a marked difference between, say, Buddhism and evangelical Protestantism- whereas in the latter case the assumption is that the speaker speaks of his personal interpretation of the Bible, in the former it is assumed that the speaker is speaking on behalf of the tradition whose lineage he represents. --Spasemunki (talk) 12:29, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Qualified Support--- depending on the nature of the source. I do not agree in the least that all "texts written by Buddhist writers and teachers that explain basic Buddhist concepts " are usable secondary sources; some will be. Religious writers write for many purposes, and the scholarly explanation of their religion is only one of them. There are differences (explained below) between the traditional Tibetan academic tradition and the European, and they need to be taken into account. As I've said elsewhere, there is no source that is reliable for all purposes, and no source that is not reliable for some purposes -- it's a spectrum--or rather, a spectrum along several dimensions. There is no quick substructure for analysis of the individual sources. ProfGrey, you've entered your comment in the oppose section, but it's a comment with which I generally agree, except for saying that only sources published in a conventional academic journal are reliable secondary sources, and I think of it as fundamentally a support; of course, equally, my comment might be thought of as an oppose. We both agree there is no clean dichotomy. DGG ( talk ) 00:08, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• Qualified Support--- . In some traditions there is little information in English. Care has to be taken that the texts are of an explanatory nature i.e. explaining beliefs and practices and/or dogmatic framework. What should be exempted are texts which are proselytising, promotional or defamatory of other faiths. One example for this is the article on Soka Gakkai, which to my mind is in large parts highly promotional. --Catflap08 (talk) 00:27, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support with limits. "Secondary" means that you are trying to explain, analyze, or build on another original (primary) work. A religious text itself is a primary source; a book interpreting the religious text is a secondary source. An article about a personal spiritual experience is a primary source; an article analyzing the previous article is a secondary source.
  About the limits: See WP:NOTGOODSOURCE. "Secondary" is not a synonym for "good source", or any possible variant on that idea. Secondary sources can be lousy. In fact, they can be so disreputable that they are entirely unusable. Yes, these might be secondary. However, "secondary" does not mean that you should use them.
  Finally, while we're on the subject, please remember that WP:Secondary does not mean independent either. A source with an indisputable conflict of interest can still be a secondary source, and an independent source is often a primary one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:16, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• Absolutely in some contexts, per DGG. It looks like the core issue is on whether the Buddhists can be reliable secondary sources on Buddhism; of course they aren't all, but many are. Note that polemical texts quite often are equally reliable; we should accept or reject a Buddhist text regardless of whether or not it bashes the Christians or attacks the Taoists. Whatamidoing puts it quite well. Nyttend (talk) 03:53, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Oppose

• OpposeVictoriaGrayson^Talk 22:46, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose for other reasons. See comments below. John Carter (talk) 19:38, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - religious sources are by definition primary sources. They don't give critical accounts. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:00, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

  Nevertheless, of course they can be used, when appropriate. The real question: are they reliable and usable? That's another question than "are they per definition secondary?" Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:54, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

  You are correct that what matters is whether the source is reliable. However, you are wrong that religious sources are primary sources by definition, and you are wrong that they don't give critical accounts. On the first point, WP:Secondary does not mean independent; it refers instead to a type of analysis, synthesis, or other higher-order style of thinking. On the second, religious sources give both "critical accounts" in the sense of "negative" or "disagreeing" accounts all the time (how else would a professor of religious studies get tenure, if s/he never criticized any ideas in the field?) and also in the sense of actual "criticism" (of the sort that defines a secondary source): Religious scholars basically invented the entire field of historical criticism. Literary criticism of religious texts is common. I suggest that you read Varieties of criticism, and notice the breadth of what qualifies as criticism—and how few have anything to do with the "I disagree with and disapprove of this ____" type of criticism (which is negative criticism). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:50, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for attending. I've been scrolling through "Varieties of criticism"; there's more to it than I'd expected. What I meant is indeed the matter of reliability and independency. The term "secondary source" may not be the clearest term in the field of religion. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:49, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose:Misleading phrasing, there is a different issue here. Montanabw^(talk) 00:30, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose: the wording is ambiguous; texts written by buddhist teachers may be either primary or secondary sources, depending on content and context. Wikipedia should be primarily based upon verifiable statements from multiple third-party reliable sources. Statements by religious teachers may also be used as a source, but we should avoid giving undue weight to the interpretation of a specific school or denomination. JimRenge (talk) 12:39, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not necessary because you already can include what significant Buddhist teachers write or believe, so long as you have a good verifiable source. But of course you have to include those views along side what academics say on the subject and be careful not to imply that the academics are somehow wrong because they don't agree with some Buddhist master or scripture. You will run into trouble if you try to rely only on what buddhist teachers say on a subject - but these days there are literally thousands of good academic books and articles available on almost all aspects of Buddhism (many written by respected academics who are also Buddhist practitioners), so that should not be a problem. Chris Fynn (talk) 14:20, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose -- I'm constantly working to get intro students to distinguish primary and secondary sources. It's a matter of voice -- are they writing from the insider or from the outside? It has nothing to do with whether they are advanced practitioners (e.g., Dalai Lama) who are "explaining" basic concepts. (In scare quotes, because from the outside we recognize that the "explaining" is interpreting, i.e., one of multiple insider POVs.) A secondary source is writing with a POV that reflects an outside, usually professional convention(s), such as journalistic or academic writing. Of course, a person of any religion can adopt a the POV of a secondary sources. There are Jewish academics who study Judaism and Buddhist academics who study Buddhist. But the Chief Rabbi of Israel or the Dalai Lama -- they are writing from an insider perspective, no matter how basic their audience or how much they analyze other primary sources. I suppose one clue -- if the rabbi or rinpoche publishes in a peer-reviewed academic journal, it's a secondary source. Otherwise, no.

But maybe Dorje108 feels stymied in the use of Dalai Lama, i.e. what I call primary sources? Because I would say that Wikipedia articles can sometimes paraphrase or cite religious texts, e.g., a synopsis of an important book. This is done with plenty of Bible articles here. Thanks! ProfGray (talk) 14:42, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

I've been working on the English Wikipedia's policies and documentation around this issue for several years. I'm not surprised that your students struggle with it.

A "religious insider" (e.g., any chief priest) is not an independent source about the religion, just like a financial insider (e.g., any chief executive officer) is not an independent source about the corporation. What distinguishes a secondary source is the type of thought. Interpretation or (especially) analysis is a secondary source. The level of bias or conflict of interest is irrelevant: actual analysis by an insider is a secondary source, because WP:Secondary does not mean independent. The location of the source is also technically irrelevant, but it might give you a clue in this field. It's possible that most articles in religious studies journals happen to be secondary sources. (In the hard sciences, most peer-reviewed articles are primary.) However, the same type of thinking would still be a secondary source even if it were published on a blog, or scrawled on a paper napkin. It's the kind of thinking that matters, not the biases of the author or the imprimatur of academia.

And all of that is why WP:NOTGOODSOURCE matters. "Secondary" is not a fancy way to spell "good". We have a definition for reliable, and we have a definition for secondary, and they are not the same definition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:59, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarification. It's a good conclusion for this RfC, I think. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:36, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose As I have explained in my earlier comments at the discussion sections:

1. We don't care whether an academic scholar is Western or Eastern, Southern or Northern. A scholar is a scholar.

2. The religious affiliation of an author is not the question here; e.g. it doesn't matter whether a Christian scholar himself/herself is a Christian, a Hindu or a Buddhist. That just simply doesn't matter. Of course there might be - and there is - lots of reliable secondary sources on Buddhism by Buddhists, on Christianity by Christians, on Hinduism by Hindus. There's no doubt about that.

3. The Bible is a primary source. Martin Luther commenting on that, though, doesn't make his commentaries a secondary source. It is still a primary source. Why? Because it is not an academic study, but merely him sharing his own interpretations on the subject.

4. A Buddhist scholar might carry out religious commentaries over some primary source(s), but the scholar might also perform academic studies on the subject. Equally, a Christian scholar might carry out religious commentaries, but still being able to have academic studies on the subject. Summa summarum, the religious background / ethnicity / identity of author shouldn't matter, but should only pay attention to the source itself.

WP:ANALYSIS gives a pretty good picture about this:

Secondary sources are not necessarily independent or third-party sources. They rely on primary sources for their material, making analytic or evaluative claims about them.[5] For example, a review article that analyzes research papers in a field is a secondary source for the research.[6] Whether a source is primary or secondary depends on context. A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a secondary source about the war, but if it includes details of the author's own war experiences, it would be a primary source about those experiences.

Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:46, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Wording of the RfC

See also Talk:Karma in Buddhism/Archive 1#Sources:

Jonathan, just to be sure that I understand your position correctly, are you asserting that texts by Buddhist writers and teachers (who do not have Western academic training) should be considered primary sources? Dorje108 17:53, 30 November 2014 (previously unsigned cmt)

Yes, I think so. See WP:PRIMARY:

"Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on."'

This does not mean they can't be used, but with care, and not too much. See also WP:WPNOTRS:

"Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately. While they can be both reliable and useful in certain situations, they must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. While specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred. Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."

Even someone like Heinrich Dumoulin, who was an academic scholar on Zen, and a professor, is nowadays regarded as a primary source! So, when possible, secondary should be used. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:34, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I think it's fair when my exact wording is given, instead of the black-and-white phrasing of some people here. Note my nunace: "This does not mean they can't be used, but with care, and not too much", and "when possible, secondary should be used". The same nuance has been given by Dorje108: "as long as they meet the criteria specified in the guidelines."
I repeat again: there are two issues here: WP:OVERQUOTE; and overreliance on publications from popular, western-oriented teachers, aimed at a general audience (c.q. students of specific teachers and religious groups), while there are also plenty of secondary and tertiary sources from highly regarded scholars, including practicing Buddhists. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:33, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Jonathan, as a matter of protocol, I don't think it can be right to start a discussion of the text of the RfC in the section before the votes, as you did. So have moved your discussion here. After all you previously said the statement of the RfC was okay as far as I remember.

Any issues you have belong in the discussion section. Also - not sure who it was who did it, but again as a matter of protocol, I don't think it can be right to add a third option to the RfC when it is still in progress, and when most participants have already voted - as that means earlier voters didn't have a chance to vote for it. So I removed that also. It had no votes in it, was an empty section, and gives what is surely a false impression that nobody would have voted for the intermediate position. And was not the result of any discussion about adding a new section to the RfC as far as I know.

We probably need a new RfC anyway, all agree. I think most have had their say, and expect it will be closed soon - but removing this content from the statement of the RfC as it makes it confusing to read. Robert Walker (talk) 11:36, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

I am amazed that I have to propose this question, but a group of current editors have decided that texts by Buddhist writers must be considered primary sources. I do not believe that current Wikipedia policies support this view. Regards, Dorje108 (talk) 21:22, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand why you don't use academic sources.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 22:48, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

A holder of the Geshe title is most certainly a reliable source regarding their own lineage, and also has the academic training to provide insights into the contrasts and similarities between different schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Is this at question? --Djembayz (talk) 00:31, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

See Kelsang Gyatso and Dorje Shugden controversy for the "certainty" of reliability. The answer to your rhetorical question is: yes.

I also am amazed that Dorje108 has to propose the question. As for Kelsang Gyatso, this particular author's views are regarded as controversial, indeed.

Not just in that controversy. He is the founder of the New Kadampa Tradition which has many features that are unusual. For instance its monks and nuns take a new set of ten vows said to be based on thee Mahayana Perfection of Wisdom Sutras instead of the vows based on the Hinayana Vinaya as in almost all branches of Buddhism. New_Kadampa_Tradition#Ordination. This has of course to be explained when discussing Buddhist ordination as done for instance here: Ordination#Buddhism.

Western academics also differ in their opinions, and some state controversial views that others disagree with. When the controversy is significant and a major difference, whatever the authors involved - it may be appropriate to put it into a separate "controversies" section. And is just the same with any area of scholarship, you always get some controversial scholars with way out ideas that few accept.

There are plenty of Tibetan sources you can use that don't have any of these issues. The question is, or should be - is it okay to use the best of the Eastern scholars and teachers as secondary sources? Where of course you then have the problem of identifying which are the best sources to use - but it is the same with Westerners also.

Also please note, Dorje doesn't use Geshes from the New Kadampa Tradition as sources. Robert Walker (talk) 20:48, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

The RFC is too broadly worded. The reliability and appropriateness of a source depends on the specific material being sourced. In some cases practitioners of the faith may be acceptable sources but academic sources are always preferred. In Buddhism we have: "Different schools of Buddhism place varying levels of value on learning the various texts. Some schools venerate certain texts as religious objects in themselves, while others take a more scholastic approach." I would be wary of assuming the writer of one school hold views common to all schools. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:00, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Neil. The problem is here: Karma_in_Buddhism#Sources. Jonathan is categorically designating that all texts by all Buddhist practitioner sources are primary sources. I agree that the reliability and appropriateness of a source depends on the specific material being sourced. But this applies to academic sources as well as Buddhist practitioner sources. How would you re-word the RFC? Regards, Dorje108 (talk) 00:32, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear Dorje; problem is not that "all texts by all Buddhist practitioner sources are primary sources"; the problem how you use them. I've already written that some primary sources may be used, but not too much. The amount of quotes you've been using is one problem; the other is, that you've been "harmonizing" topics, giving an interpretation in a subtle manner. With "subtle" I don't mean "sneaky"!!!! But it's the kind of writing that's being practiced in the Tibetan tradition, where the guru explains how a text is to be understood.

For the two articles, the large amount of quotes diverts the topic: the four truths, karma. It's simply too much, and it misses crucial information. You've been working on the four truths article for a year and a half; after I worked on it for half a day I found "Pain and its ending", by Carol Anderson. She refers to Schmithausen, who states that the four truths are a later addition to texts like Majjhima Nikaya 36. K.R. Norman has shown the same for the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. That's esssential information, which tells a lot about the redaction of those texts! If those ground-sources can't be thrusted, at such a basic level, then how much more the later tradition? Those texts are interpreted, and that's what should be shown: the various interpretations, not "Karma is such-and-such". That is the kind of information which is lacking when mostly primary sources are being used, published for a large audience. They won't give those details; it does not sell.

Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:08, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and regarding "all texts by all Buddhist practitioner sources are primary sources": Edward Conze was a scholar and a practitioner. In his "Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels" (in "Thirt years of Buddhust Studies"; pdf available at the web) he explains that Buddhism can only be truly understoos when you practice it. He strikes me as a someone who really understood; I'd say, that's because he practiced. (It does not mean, of course, that Buddhist teachers are by definition reliable experts on textual history. And I wonder if Edward Conze's essays are deemed "reliable" nowadays). Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:49, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I've no idea what you mean here about "harmonizing" views as Dorje108's articles. He has a long section on the various different views in different traditions here: User:Robertinventor/Karma_In_Buddhism#Within_Buddhist_traditions - no attempt at all to try to make them into a single unified view, indeed opposite, clearly pointing out distinctions. And when he does have examples of several scholars who say similar things - this is also useful, to have quotes from them all and to see how they differ as well as how they are similar by directly comparing the quotes, as in his sources given in his notes for Talk:Karma_in_Buddhism#The_citations_in_the_Karmic_results_are_not_a_judgement_section_which_you_deleted - yes they all say the same basic message, but the details differ and examples and analogies used differ, and these differences are instructive for the reader. Robert Walker (talk) 22:26, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I have a feelng @Shii: would probably be the best person to deal with this topic. My reservations are not so much about the fact of the scholars having any particular academic credentials, but that there are a rather widespread number of Buddhist schools, and that the statement of a practitioner of a particular school may be only applicable to his school. The situation would be much the same as using Billy Graham as a source for material on Christianity. In both cases, I think the source probably qualifies as broadly reliable, but in both cases I would think that there could be serious questions regarding the positions or possible bias of the source such that academic sources would probably be preferable. John Carter (talk) 19:38, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

John, thanks for your input. Regarding the example of Billy Graham, doesn't it depend on the context? If Billy Graham is talking about his personal relationship to God, then he would be considered a primary source on that topic. But if he writes a commentary on a sermon of Jesus, shouldn't that text be considered a secondary source in this instance? Regards, Dorje108 (talk) 05:46, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Re: Billy Graham: Billy Graham is an evangelist, not a theological historian. Any opinion of his would have to be stated as specifically his [idiosyncratic] opinion. Softlavender (talk) 08:16, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Should we stuff the Christianity articles with various pastors, rather than academic sources? Because thats essentially what Dorje108 does.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 16:33, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

He is discriminating in his sources. He doesn't use the "Billy Graham's" of Tibetan Buddhism as sources. Of course, being a "Tibetan Buddhist" doesn't magically make you a valid source to cite. Nor does it make you an invalid source. Your ethnicity and your upbringing as a Buddhist has no bearing either way on this. Dorje108 I think the point here is that Billy Graham didn't receive conventional training as a minister, as far as I know, instead his degree was in anthropology, and he is an evangelist. I don't think he would be regarded as a reliable source on anything in Christian theology except is own teachings. Correct me anyone if I'm wrong here. Robert Walker (talk) 08:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

If some particular source is controversial or unreliable, you challenge it - and it makes no difference if they are Western or Tibetan. Some Western sources may be equally controversial in the things they say.

In short this needs to be dealt with on a case by case basis, not through a blanket ban on scholars of Thai, Sri Lankan or Tibetan origin. Or indeed on Western sources either. Robert Walker (talk) 21:45, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

For context, I should note that Billy Graham wrote several books which are, in a sense, theological works, and I was primarily thinking of works of that type.

For the broader discussion, it might be worth while for someone here to contact WP:RX and ask for any encyclopedic articles which the editors with the free access to databanks there can provide on this topic. Particularly useful would be the items that might be included in the bibliographies of those articles. If certain works from Buddhist practitioners are included in those bibliographies, I would tend to think that it would be quite reasonable to use them, as they would, possibly, be considered among the more highly regarded sources on the topic. John Carter (talk) 20:33, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I may be mistaken on Walhola Rapula; he's referred to several times in Buswell's Encyclopdia of Buddhism. But that doesn't change the fact that his "What the Buddha taught" is from 1959, and has nothing to say about the research in the field after that year - a period of 55 years. No Schmithausen, Norman, Gombrich, Bronkhorst, Vetter, et cetera. Not exactly up-to-date. And a scholar who thinks that the Pali-canon has preserved the exact teachings of the Buddha - well, that's acceptable in some religious circles, but not in scholarly circles. It was already questioned in his time, let alone nowadays. To call him "undoubtly" a secondary source is a rather short-sighted statement. Any quotation from him should be handled with the utmost care, and be checked for its accuracy and relevancy. Let alone the publications by all those teachers aiming at a general public, as for example Geshe Tering, as I've shown above. And that's only one author yet. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 21:10, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Re preservation of the Pali Canon - those who think so have good reasons for their views. It's not an irrational or "point of faith" thing here. It seems at least possible that it does preserve his teachings essentially unchanged. That's because of the way his teachings were preserved. Even in his lifetime, they started the process of "Rehearsing" his teachings - it started after Nigantha Najaputta, founder of Jainism passed away and his disciples were greatly divided and engaged in heated arguments because they hadn't collected his teachings. So the Buddha's disciples, they already started memorizing his teachings while still alive. And then in the first great council after he died, the elders all gathered and in a 500 strong assembly, they agreed on the content to be memorized, and then chanted it in unison and so memorized it. The first rehearsal taking seven months. And - I see no reason to doubt that some of the monks did have sufficiently good memories to recite the entire Pali canon by memory - as even today, with the texts in writing, some of the Therevadhan monks are able to recite the entire Pali Canon, all 16,000 pages, from memory. They are set out in ways that assist memory, which helps them to accomplish this feat. So why not be preserved for several centuries by recitation and memory?

For more details of the process of memorization of the Buddha's teachings, and how the first seven month rehearsal came about, and how his teachings were also memorized while he was still alive, see "The Pali Canon" - What a Buddhist must know - intro by the brilliant Thai Scholar Prayudh Payutto. This is recent scholarship as it is published in 2002. Robert Walker (talk) 21:37, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

See WP:VNT.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 21:50, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't 'explain that well, have just edited it to make it clearer, hope it is okay now. I'm not saying that wikipedia should say that these are the words of the Buddha.

All I'm saying here is that it is okay to use authors who consider that they preserve the teachings as recorded in the assemblies and memorized as monks, as they have good reasons for their views here. This does not make them unreliable or unacceptable as a secondary source - any more than the views of those who think that the teachings are not preserved. It is just a situation where good secondary sources have differing views - something that is commonplace. Robert Walker (talk) 21:57, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Are you serious: "It is just a situation where good secondary sources have differing views - something that is commonplace" - ? Science is all a matter of "view", at the same footing as religion? It's all just a matter of opinion, isn't it?

From What a Buddhist must know:

"The Pali Canon of Theravàda Buddhism, after two and a half millennia and six major rehearsals, has been generally recognised as the oldest, most original, most complete, and most accurate record of the Buddha’s teachings still available today."

Says it all. Sectarian. Read Schmithausen, Norman, Gombrich, Bronkhorst etc. to see what serious scholars think about this. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 23:04, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what point you are making here. You get differences of opinion in science, and archaeology, and history, and this is commonplace. This doesn't mean it is a matter of "view". They have good reasons for the differences of opinion, based on hard evidence, both sides of any such controversy. Are you questioning this? Robert Walker (talk) 07:17, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

BTW - (this is meant as a new point, not continuing previous discussion) interesting sideline, the Dalai Lama is cited as a source on Buddhist teachings in the wikipedia article on the Sermon on the Mount on modern parallels between the teachings of Jesus such as the Sermon on the Mount and some Buddhist teachings. So if he was excluded as a secondary source in the Buddhist articles on Wikipedia - we'd be in the interesting situation where he is regarded as a valid secondary source on Buddhism in articles on Christianity but not in articles on Buddhism. Robert Walker (talk) 21:54, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I couldn't resist participating the converstation here :-) Anyway, so far I agree with Joshua Jonathan and Victoria Graysson that we should prefer secondary sources over primary ones. Of course, primary sources are not totally excluded, but as a general rule we should have the emphasis on the secondary ones.

This is not about trying to discredit any prestigious figures of different schools, like Dalai Lama, but about attempting to find a decent secondary source that would "verify" what each person says. I am pretty sure that there are lots of secondary sources about, let's say, Dalai Lama available. Sources, that have studied different views and opinions of Dalai Lama in an analytical and systematical manner.

Of course, the problem might not be so obvious with such a major religion as Buddhism, but in some articles dealing with the so called New Religions, it has turned to be indeed problematic. For example, when the most quoted interpretations about the religion come from an authority within the religion itself (e.g. Cao Đài or Shinnyo-en). Again, I do believe that Dalai Lama has a great deal of information about the different schools of Tibetan Buddhism, but can't we try to find a secondary source that would verify it as well?

Well, as said above, primary sources aren't completely excluded either. That's where I am a little bit confused. For example, Joshua Jonathan and I have previously discussed about using such figures as Philip Kapleau (Zen Buddhism -> Sanbo Kyodan)[2][[3] and Tony Page (Tathagatagarbha / Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra)[4] as sources. Even though I have later came to a conclusion that indeed Philip Kapleau is worthy of using as a primary source (even though he is no academic nor a lineage holder in Sanbo Kyodan or Zen Buddhism in general), I still can't stop wondering why we can't use for example professor Ph. D. Tony Page as a primary source. Although not a scholar in the field of Buddhism (but German language and literature), he's translated the German translation of Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra into English, and has been described as a creditable Buddhist scholar by many.

I am sorry to bring this up again, Joshua Jonathan, but I think we do need some clear guideline when it comes to using primary sources. Personally, I'd rather stick to the secondary ones, since that's how most of the problem disappears, but still under many circumstances primary sources do serve their purpose.

If we don't use Tony Page as a source, I don't think we should use Philip Kapleau either. I previously agreed on using Philip Kapleau since he had "the blessing" of his teacher Yasutani Roshi, but I must admit that I wasn't really paying attention to the nature of a primary source that time. Back to Tony page, here's a short quote about his credentials:

His book, Buddhism and Animals, has featured on the list of recommended books for Buddhist study at the University of Toronto, and he has been invited to international symposia on the tathagatagarbha doctrine and asked to lecture on the Mahaparinirvana Sutra and Buddhism more than once at the University of London (SOAS). Moreover, the Oxford scholar and Tibetan Buddhist lama, Dr. Shenpen Hookham, has publicly called Dr. Page "a creditable Buddhist scholar" in her Preface to Buddhism and Animals and has spoken of his keen scholarship in connection with his German translation of the Tibetan Nirvana Sutra. Equally significantly, Professor Paul Williams - an international authority on Mahayana Buddhism - wrote a Foreword in support of Dr. Page's book, Buddhism and Animals, and in the 2009 edition of Williams' own acclaimed book, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, Professor Williams promotes the present 'Nirvana Sutra' website as a reference resource for those interested in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra. Furthermore, Tony Page worked in close collaboration with the highly respected Nirvana Sutra expert, Stephen Hodge, on the ideas contained in the Nirvana Sutra for many years.

I hope you won't get mad at me for bringing this up again, Joshua Jonathan :-D Anyway, when it comes to secondary sources vs. primary sources, my position is clear: please use the secondary sources! Cheers mates and happy Finnish Independence Day! ;-) Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:35, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this isn't really the place to discuss the differential usage of primary and secondary sources, or, for that matter, the sometimes nebulous differential between the two. In general, simply as a personal opinion, I tend to think that most articles we have, including those on most of the new religious movements, will have substantial articles in at least a few reference sources, often with bibliographies. I would think that, in general, the sources included in a bibliography in a reference work are probably the ones to use first, with obvious exceptions perhaps for matters of recent changes in doctrine or other forms of developments. John Carter (talk) 16:43, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Tony is not a professor, but a PhD. He completely missed, or ignored, the fact that the idea of the Buddha-nature was introduced in the MPNS as a substitute for relic-worship. Your argument against Kapleau was that he was not an official heir to Yasutani. So, for the Buddha-nature, there are much better, scholarly sources. And for Zen, well, there are also better sources than Kapleau, for instance Robert Sharf. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:51, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

NB: the quote above is from Tony's own website. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:59, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

True. But Robert Sharf is a secondary source, so naturally we do prefer him over primary sources like Kapleau ;-) But I was merely talking about qualifying primary sources, whenever they serve their purpose of course. I think we'd need some sort of clarity here which primary sources are eligible and which are not. E.g. some of the primary sources might be scholarly, some might be not. John Carter is right above, though. This isn't really the place to discuss about WP:RS, but like you suggested, I think this should continue at WP:RS rather than here.

Oh, and no author is either primary nor secondary source per se. It totally depends on the piece of work! ;-) Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 12:44, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

@Andi 3: I see yout point here, but I've got two objections: there's a lot of scholarly research available, so "we would end up with not much in hand" is not correct. And I don't think that it's "quite obvious" that most readers of these articles are interested solely in an insiders-perspective. Most readers (imagine, for example, all the readers who side with Sam Harris) won't be Buddhists, and want the relevant information, not just the insiders-view. On the contrary: the "outsiders" can point out the differences between the various schools of Buddhism, and the developments that the Buddhist faith underwent, based on independent research. The four truths are a nice example: scholarly research shows that they are not an indispensable artefact of the Buddhist traditions, but are the result of an ongoing development. Knowing this may help in understanding Buddhism. It did for me, at least, as a practitioning Buddhist. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:01, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

If we narrow the list of reliable sources on Buddhism down to those few individuals worldwide who were lucky enough to acquire a (paid) position in a western academic institution that allows them to conduct their research on Buddhism, we would end up with not much in hand.

I think John Carter got it right: this is not the place to discuss about changes concerning WP:RS. Besides, the discussion is going in circles and commentators keep continuously ignoring the fact that we have to evaluate the source itself, not the author.

I feel stupid to repeat myself, but: a) we cannot label any individual as primary nor secondary source per se, and b) nobody has said that one has to be "a western academic"; instead, all the academics stand on the same line. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 18:30, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

It was said earlier:

In some traditions there is little information in English. [...] Catflap08 (talk) 00:27, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Dear Catflap08, no one hasn't even opposed using non-English sources. Even the Wikipedia Policy doesn't prohibit using non-English sources (WP:NONENG). There are no restrictions in using non-English sources. What's been under discussion here, however, is if non-academic sources can be used. Again, nobody has said that "primary sources could be used under no circumstances". Not true, sure they can. I have commented several times already that we don't care whether the academic scholar is Western or Eastern, Southern or Northern. Scholar is a scholar. And if the one - whoever it is being quoted - is notable enough, sure there are at least sources from his/her own country, (or) in his/her own language, available there. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 18:00, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Carol S. Anderson, Pain and its ending'

Joshua, it is not that unusual to find a new citation that is not yet included in an article in Wikipedia. And sometimes they express significantly different viewpoints from sources already used in the article. And if saying something significantly different from the other sources used in the article, it might deserve a new section in the article, I'd discuss on talk page first if I'd found it after only just half a day of research, most likely. But is not a reason to rewrite the entire article, if that was your reason for doing so. Individual authors often have views that others regard as highly individual or eccentric for instance. Though sometimes notable enough to deserve mention and maybe extensive treatment. I don't know anything myself about this particular book or author, can't comment on her notability, reputation or reliability. Just making this as a general point about use of sources. Robert Walker (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I had a search in Google Scholar but couldn't find much discussion of her book. However, here is a critical response to her work: Review by Lance Selwyn Cousins which could point you in the direction of some issues in what she says. For more about this author see L. S. Cousins. Robert Walker (talk) 06:15, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Get real. Published in the "CURZON CRITICAL STUDIES IN BUDDHISM", general editors Charles S. Prebish and Damien Keown; reprint in the "Buddhist Tardition Series", with a foreword by Alex Wayman. That's an honour. Based on Schmithausen's 1981 article. To call that "highly individual or eccentric" shows that you're competencet in judging the value of contemporary Buddhist scholarship.

Regarding Cousins: "This is a well-presented and clearly written book, based on a wide reading of both recent and older scholarship. Carol Anderson gives a detailed account of the various guises in which the four noble truths appear in the P!li texts. Overall, this is a valuable and intelligent account of the material, and it will, I suspect, be required reading in Buddhist studies courses for some time."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:38, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

But has only 18 citations in Google Scholar, doesn't seem like a book that made a big impact from that. I didn't say that she was "highly individual or eccentric", just cautioned you that some citations are. Even a notable book can be, you can't take any book like this and conclude "Right this is highly regarded by so and so, therefore it is the right answer". You need to know more about the book and its context first. Selwyn pointed out many issues with her book, showing that it is not universally accepted by any means - apparently Richard Gombrich has described L. S. Cousins as the leading authority in the West in the field of abhidhamma.

Here is one quote from L. S. Cousins to point in direction of some things she says that would be considered controversial:

"Much use is made here of an important article of K. R. Norman, in which he analyzes the exact linguistic form of passages referring to the four truths, especially in the Dhammacakkapavattana-sutta, traditionally the first sermon of the Buddha. Here and elsewhere, Anderson attributes to Norman the view that "the four truths were probably added after the earliest version of this sutta" (p. 68; cf. p. 20 and p. 149). I do not think this is what he says.... He does not, however, say that no references to the four truths occurred in the original version of the sutta. (He does say that the first brief statement of the four truths is probably a later addition.) In fact, the idea of an earlier version of the discourse without the four truths seems very unlikely. If the whole section with the twelvefold presentation of the truths is later, then the cry repeated through the heaven worlds must also be an addition. This leaves very little in this short discourse! A sutta that contained only the mention of the middle way is highly improbable"

Details here, LS Cousin's review. He goes through it in some detail, finds some things of value, other things that would be regarded as controversial, and a few sections that he says are very poor. Where of course his review also is presenting an individual view on the topic too. In short probably a useful extra citation that could add material to the article, but should be presented as putting forward controversial views not generally accepted, and certainly not at all a reason for completely rewriting it. The statement "Should be required reading" should be taken with a small grain of salt - it is common to say such things in reviews. That doesn't mean that it actually is required reading for Buddhist studies, is just one reviewer saying it should be. And being required reading of course also doesn't mean at all that it is uncontroversial. Robert Walker (talk) 08:36, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

"putting forward controversial views not generally accepted" - Norman's research has also been taken up by Schmithausen; their conclusions have further been elaborated by Vetter, Gombrich and Bronkhorst. That's the major league of researchers on early Buddhism. So, "putting forward controversial views not generally accepted", based on the comment of one scholar, who does not use the term "controversial", on one citation of the book, is not an adequate condensation of the contemporary research on this topic. By the way, I appreciate your effort to use this review. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:47, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Well it was the only review I could find online in a quick search. And of a respected academic. The original book wasn't much cited, only 18 cites in google scholar. But I'm sure her main thesis, that the Buddha's original teachings didn't include the four noble truths is bound to be highly controversial. And seems those who argue that the teachings are essentially unchanged also have a point from what I've read. I can accept that in a few centuries of monks memorizing the sutras that they may have added some extra lines or passages to them, or changed some words. But this is going a bit far, as Lance Cousins said, leaving one sutra with almost no original content and the idea that they somehow added the entire topic of the four noble truths, throughout the sutras, through faulty memorization.

I know this is original research to say what I just said - so not saying that as something to put into wikipedia of course. Rather they are meta reasons - why I am sure it must be a controversial statement. I find it hard to credit the idea that a whole lot of academics have just accepted this without reservations or controversy or at least lots of discussion which would turn up more than 18 citations in Google scholar. And am sure if you search you will find others that argue the other way. And of course you are only listing Western academics there. Respected but also doesn't mean you accept what any of them say as "revealed truth" of course. Robert Walker (talk) 01:42, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I do really recommand Bronkhorst, "The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India", expecially chapter 8. It's a classic. Definitely scholarly, by which I mean yo have to take some effort 'to get into the text' (this may be a 'Dutch-anism'), but it's rewarding. Next recommendation is Vetter's "Ideas and Practices of Early ". Both can easily be found at the web. Carol Anderson is not writing out of the blue; she's picked up her ideas from authors like these. Read them; it's facinating and challenging. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:39, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Lindsay Jones'"Encyclopedia of Religion" refers both to Anderson, and to Norman, K. R. "Why are the Four Noble Truths called ‘Noble’?"' In Ananda: Papers on Buddhism and Indology: A Felicitation Volume Presented to Ananda Weihena Palliya Guruge on his Sixtieth Birthday, edited by Y. Karunadasa, pp. 11–13. Columbo, 1990. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:44, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

One of Cousins's main points is that he says that Carol Anderson has misinterpreted what Bronkhurst says Review by Lance Selwyn Cousins.

Where of course it is not the job of wikipedia editors to decide if Anderson is right or Cousins or to determine what Brokhurst meant if there are conflicting views about that etc etc. This is best fixed by making sure to be careful with attribution whenever there are reliable secondary sources that say different things.

So for instance whenever an article refers to Anderson's thesis - do you not agree - that it must make clear that it is describing her thesis and attribute it to her? That is, unless there is evidence of a consensus of course amongst all reliable secondary sources - but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of a consensus on this thesis. It is not evidence of a consensus to give a list of a few academics that agree with her. Especially when there are others that disagree. Robert Walker (talk) 00:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Walhola Rapula

• Richard Gombrich (a student of Walpola Rahula) (2009), What the Buddha Thought:
  • "I have not used up space by providing the rudimentary knowledge which can be picked up from any work of reference or better, perhaps, from such books as What the Buddha Taught by the Ven. Walpola Rahula or The Buddha's Way by the Ven H. Saddhatissa." (p.viii)
  • "The very title of this book pays homage to the famous book by the Ven. Dr Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught. Over the years I have come to think that that book might be more appropriately entitled What Buddhagosa Taught." (p.155-156)
• Vetter (1988), Ideas and practices of early Buddhism: no references to Walpola rahula
• Bronkhorst (2009), Buddhist Teaching in India: no references to Walpola Rahula
• Bronkhorst (2007), Greater Magadha: no references to Walpola Rahula
• Norman (1994), A Phological Approach to Buddhism:
  • One reference, on p.66, in which Norman criticises Rahula: "Such comments are typical of the way in which Aboka is described in books about early Buddhism. As I stated in the first lecture, I have spent a large portion of my academic life studying Asoka's inscriptions, and I do not find that the picture of the man which emerges from his edicts coincides entirely with what we find written about him."
  • But, fair is fair: "an eminent Buddhist scholar"

So, conclusion: yes, a respected scholar, which is also clear from the fact that all the great names I've mentioned contributed to a Festschrift for him. But also a scholar who's hardly, or not, being cited anymore, and, when he's cited, is being criticised. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 23:04, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Given what you have said above, I think it is reasonable to say that, unless there is, for whatever reason, a particular phrase or other direct quotation from him that is particularly memorable for whatever reason or particularly apt and succinct, or, perhaps, if some idea which does still have significant currency in the academic community and is included in the article were first proposed by him, there would be no reason not to use a more recent or more currently highly-regarded academic source. John Carter (talk) 23:11, 4 December 2014 (UTC

Hardly cited? 249 citations since 2010, and 94 citations since 2013. It remains a highly regarded source. Compare "Pain and its Ending" which Joshua Jonathan champions, it has 18 citations ever. Robert Walker (talk) 06:58, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Gombrich also calls it "By far the best introduction to Buddhism available." And - nobody could call it rudimentary. He doesn't in that quote you give. Just recommends it as a way to get started. It is also suitable for returning to as your understanding develops. I'd also like to point out that Walpola Rahula lived until 1999 and had the opportunity to revise his 1959 book in light of later research. Robert Walker (talk) 07:11, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, an introduction, sold in large numbers. No wonder that a popular introduction has more citations than a specialized, academic treatise. Also notice, that Gombrich states that rudimentary knowledge can be picked from "any work of reference or better, perhaps, from such books as What the Buddha Taught." Which means that Gombrich does not regard it as "a work of reference." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:09, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, there is an extensive biography of 14 items for the article "Karman: Buddhist concepts" written by Dennis Hirota in 2005 for the 2nd Lindsay Jones edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion, on page 5101 in volume 8. he article itself runs to around 4 pages. I'm not seeing anything from Rahula included there. I would think that the works included there would probably all be preferable, given their being cited in that article. I think the relevant article in the Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, which is available at archive.org here, might also be very useful as it is in the PD and can be quoted extensively if such is found reasonable. John Carter (talk) 16:43, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I was thinking this over, and remembered that WR has got something to do with "Buddhist Protestantism"; see David Chapman, Protestant Buddhism. Brought me to David McMahan, "The Making of Buddhist Modernism":

"The demythologized versions of Buddhism, though based on a selective and reconstituted reading of the tradition, are not simply a western invention. There are passages in the vast Buddhist canon that can easily be brought into dialogue with modern sensibilities, and prominent Asian Buddhist authors have promoted demythologized Buddhism. It is visible, for example, in a text still widely used in college classrooms: Walpola Rahula’s What the Buddha Taught (1959 [1974]). In many ways an excellent book, on the whole it presents certain key doctrines of the Pali suttas intelligibly and accessibly. However, the first chapter, “The Buddhist Attitude of Mind,” is an unwitting primer on demythologized and detraditionalized Buddhism." (p.50)

And page 51:

"My point is not that Rahula’s is not “real” Buddhism, is somehow illegitimate or disingenuous but that it is not simply “what the Buddha taught,” as the title promises. Rahula was attempting to construct Buddhist answers to questions that had not arisen in previous Buddhist contexts and to harmonize Buddhism with powerful modern discourses that have great cultural currency not only in the West but worldwide. His reconstruction of the dharma situates it within the discourses of modernity by offering a Buddhism that is demythologized, and detraditionalized in ways typical of modernization:

1. Rahula selects from the vast corpus of Buddhist literature certain features that can be interpreted in such a way as to resonate with a modern worldview, especially the Enlightenment, Protestantism, Transcendentalism, and science.

2. This selection excludes or obscures other features of Buddhist literature, for example the many stories of miracles, magical feats, supernatural beings, and literal heavens and hells.

3. When Rahula does address these, he tends to present them as ethically significant myth, symbol, or allegory.

4. By focusing on elite literature, Rahula’s presentation occludes many features of the tradition on the ground, such as ritual, devotion, and exorcism, that are actually more central to many Buddhists’ lives than abstract doctrines.

Many ordinary Buddhists would not recognize much of what Rahula presents as their practices, attitudes, and beliefs. What he suppresses would give a fuller picture of Buddhism in its various historical manifestations. His emphasis on tolerance of other views, for example, is certainly not reflected in the many Buddhist polemical texts savaging opponents’ positions, or the religious conflicts in his own Sri Lanka that Buddhists themselves have participated in. What he refers to as “the Buddhist” is an idealized figure having little to do with living Buddhists [...] Rahula’s Buddhism is the idealized, textualized Buddhism of the orientalist scholars."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 22:01, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

That's just one scholars view on him. I agree he doesn't make much mention of events that we'd consider miraculous. For instance his short account of the life of the Buddha, it doesn't mention details such as the baby "Buddha to be" able to take several steps as soon as he was born, and lotuses springing up at his feet as he walked.

But - this is not restricted to Buddhism. In Christianity - for instance many Christians pray to Christ to grant wishes, or they believe in the miraculous events in the bible happened exactly as described. Many go so far as to think that the world was created in 6,006 BC. And you also have the theologians and many modern theologians describe a form of Christianity that might be unrecognizable to many Christians. For instance news stories from time to time here in the UK about Christian bishops who state that they don't think it is necessary to take the resurrection of Christ in the body literally as an essential part of the Christian teachings. Which many Christians just accept unquestioningly, but scholars and theologians have differing views about this and it wouldn't make you an invalid secondary source in Christian theology if you either questioned it or had other views about it. Not nowadays. A few centuries ago it might have got you burnt as a heretic indeed.

There are many events in the sutras that we would consider miraculous. So - that's something that you have to address at some point - did they happen exactly as described? Is it possible that there is more to the world than we understand today and that such things are indeed possible? Or are they more, just vivid ways of describing various ideas in the Buddha's teaching? For instance the miraculous birth and first steps of the Buddha - maybe a way of expressing the devotion of the first disciples of the Buddha who first memorized this? Their way of saying that this was a miraculous event, in some way, appearance in this world of the "Buddha to be" and introduced this symbolism of the lotuses and first steps as their way of expressing it?

I don't think it is a fault myself, in a book on "What the Buddha taught" to not go into detail on this. After all his focus was, to present the core teachings of the four noble truths, and to present, also, aspects of the Buddha's teachings common to all Buddhists. In that context, seems a reasonable decision not to go into detail on the miracles. Because - unlike Christianity where the resurrection of Christ is a core teaching you can't ignore, the miracles in the Buddhist teachings, I don't think are core teachings at all. You are not expected to "believe" in them. And many would have seemed less miraculous then, in the sense of, part of the ordinary world, than they do to us today with our fully worked out science and scientific laws for everything. The core teachings, surely, are the ones that Walpola Rahula chose to focus on, vis, the four noble truths. Robert Walker (talk) 16:14, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Geshe Tering, Four Noble Truths

Geshe Tering's "Four Noble Truths" is an uncritical account; he's a Geshe, a qualified spiritual teacher, but the book misses essential insigths from contemporary western academic studies. Some quotes:

• "Only after the Buddha’s passing did his disciples, now vast in number, come together to try to preserve his precious teachings." (p.24 of the pdf) - be sure that the Buddha organised his order in such a way that his message would be saved. It was not some kind of spontaneous process, but a directed and organised endeavour. See Gombrich, "What the Buddha Thought";
• "The Four Noble Truths Sutra is the Buddha’s first and most essential teaching" (p.28) - the four truths are a later addition to the Setting the Wheel of Dharma in Motion-sutra, just like they were later added to MN 36 and "his" tale of awakening. See Bronkhorst 1993 p.110, and Anderson 1999 p.68;
• "The modifier noble means truth as perceived by arya beings, those beings who have had a direct realization of emptiness or selflessness." (p.35) - The term "arya" was later added to the four truths (K.R. Norman; see Anderson 1999); Tesring's explanation is only one of several possible interpretations. The "direct realization of emptiness or selflessness" may be a Mahayana teaching, but it's quite unlikely that this was the Buddha's essential message. It may have ben closer to "This (the path) works; I'm under control" ("I'm cool", so to speak ;)); see Bronkhorst 1993, ch.8.

It's a nice and helpfull book when you're attracted to Tibetan Buddhism, but it's not in all respects an accurate source; it's a practical religious book, from a particular, western-oriented organisation, aiming at a larger, western audience. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:00, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Also the Gelug school has highly unusual perspectives, which are not shared by the other Tibetan Buddhist schools. I would never read or cite Gelug Geshes.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 17:03, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I guess I don't quite go along with the "never use Gelug" material angle, that seems a mere "denominational" difference, rather like the Presbyterians saying they'll never read stuff written by a Congregationalist or something... Montanabw^(talk) 07:09, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Dennis Hirota - Karman: Buddhist concepts

Copied thread
There is an extensive biography of 14 items for the article "Karman: Buddhist concepts" written by Dennis Hirota in 2005 for the 2nd Lindsay Jones edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion, on page 5101 in volume 8. The article itself runs to around 4 pages [...] I would think that the works included there would probably all be preferable, given their being cited in that article [...] John Carter (talk) 16:43, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Wendy Doniger (ed) (1980), Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, may be the most relevant and accessible. McDermott's contribution, "Karma and Rebirth in Early Buddhism, details the points of view of various Indian Buddhist schools. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 22:19, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:RX might well be capable of helping acquisition of others, and, for all I know, having not yet checked, some might be available to me locally, if anyone wants to specify which they are thinking about. John Carter (talk) 16:18, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

The Dalai Lama as a Secondary Source in Tibetan Buddhism

I thought I'd say something about the Dalai Lama, and why he is regarded as a good secondary source, to fill out in more detail what I said in my own support statement. First, User:Dorje108 and anyone reading this expert on the Dalai Lama please correct any mistakes here.

Dalai Lama not a "Spiritual Leader of Tibetan Buddhism"

Also for anyone more familiar with other religions - in no way is the Dalai Lama a "leader of Buddhism" in Tibet like the Pope.

He did have a status as a political leader which he no longer has since he gave up that role. But in Buddhism then Buddha told his followers not to take anyone else on as a leader of the community after he died.

So - he can't issue proclamations or such like. He has no authority at all to tell other Buddhists, even in Tibet, how to interpret the Buddha's teachings. He can say how he understands the teachings himself. But those listening will not feel any need to follow any advice or suggestions he gives regarding the Buddha's teachings, or anything else for that matter. The only people who would expect to follow his advice would be his own personal students whoever they are, who have decided, for one reason or another that he is their spiritual friend who they want to go to for personal advice as practitioners.

And in that case also, as teacher and spiritual friend, the role of a teacher in Buddhism is to help his or her students to develop their own understanding of the teachings, not to tell them what to believe. The Buddha himself had no creed for his followers, and though he taught many things, he asked his students to look into everything for themselves, and not to believe anything just on his "say so".

So the Dalai Lama doesn't have a "conflict of interest" or anything like that when presenting the teachings, is just presenting them as best he understands them himself.

Dalai Lamas don't have to be outstanding experts in the Tibetan sutras, just happens that this one is

So, according to general Buddhist ideas of rebirth, and also Tibetan ideas in particular, there is no reason at all for successive Dalai Lamas to be similar in personality or interests. And though generally they tend to be bright, intelligent as children, they don't have to be scholarly. In particular, the sixth Dalai Lama was not interested in scholarship and was noted as a poet. They say his poetry is still popular today. Perhaps the Tibetan equivalent of our William Blake?

If our present Dalai Lama was like that, he would not be regarded as a secondary source on Tibetan Buddhism.

However the present Dalai Lama was noted from an early age for his interest and also expertise in scholarship. He passed all his exams with flying colours and amazed the monks with his proficiency in debate.

Proficiency in all four schools

Then he went on to master the teachings and receive the transmissions of all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. For the ordinary practitioner this is not an easy task, rather mind boggling indeed, as they have conflicting ideas and practices. But for people like this, it is no problem.

So though he is normally thought of as a Gelugpa, he has also completed the training needed to be a noted Kagyupa or Nyingmapa or Sakyapa teacher as well. In the Nyingmapa tradition, for instance, his principal teacher is Dilgo Khyentse in the traditions of Dzog Chen and the Nyingmapa tradition. See Dilgo_Khyentse#Buddhist_studies.

Dilgo Khyentse was an especially noted teacher. Though head of the Nyingmapa tradition, he also similarly received transmissions and teachings in all the four schools. And was taught in old Tibet, so one of the few teachers who escaped to the West who completed his training in Tibet. And he is regarded as the teacher who single handedly saved most of the teachings of old Tibet as a living lineage so that they can be passed on in that way to future teachers.

So, when we talk about secondary sources in Tibetan Buddhism, then the Dalai Lama has a special position here, not because he is the Dalai Lama, but because he has mastered all the four traditions, and also done so in the Rime style where the emphasis is on preserving the variety in the teachings and presenting each one as it is understood within its own tradition. And because he is also fluent in English, especially written English, able to write down his understanding and communicate it in ways that can be understood by a Western audience.

There are a few other Tibetan teachers who have achieved this level of scholarship in Tibetan Buddhism, and User:Dorje108 tends to use them as sources by preference where available. Another example is one of Dilgo Khyentse's students, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche.

These are all teachers in the Rimé movement where the idea is that different beings need different teachings, and so it is important to preserve all the schools and to present their teachings exactly as understood within the schools, and to treat other schools of Buddhism and other religions in the same way. Which makes them particularly good sources for an accurate treatment of Tibetan Buddhism as understood by Buddhists in Tibet.

We actually don't have any Westerners who are as good sources as this, I believe - correct me if I'm wrong here anyone. [NB Dorje answered this, some Westerners have also mastered the primary sources in the Tibetan tradition, see below - I don't know if any of them are at the level of proficiency in the Tibetan texts and practices to be a Rime master said to have mastered the teachings of all four schools like the Dalai Lama - but - there are some very dedicated Tibetologists, maybe some are??]

The large number of Texts in Tibetan - their first language - that a good Tibetan scholar is expected to master

The problem is - that just as a Pali scholar has to understand Pali and to understand the Pali canon and commentaries - a Tibetan scholar has to understand Tibetan and the Tibetan canon and commentaries - and the various teachings of the later schools in Tibetan Buddhism also. So - that requires an in depth understanding of Tibetan first, which is a difficult language, apparently, to understand at this level of subtlety. And as well as that - it requires knowledge of a huge number of written texts also. The typical course of study to complete this in just one of the schools takes about ten years. And to understand all four schools would presumably take longer.

So, as far as I know, again correct me if wrong, I don't think any Westerner Tibetan Scholars have yet reached that level of study to be able to say they have understood the Tibetan texts as thoroughly as someone like the Dalai Lama. Though they may have in depth studies of say one particular text. [corrected below]

In any case he is certainly a good secondary source on Tibetan Buddhism, I'd say. And my understanding is, that I don't think many would contest that - except for a few Westerners in the New Kadampa Tradition which is itself of course controversial.

Of course you don't need that level of scholarship of the Tibetan texts to either practice as a Buddhist or have an in depth understanding of the teachings of the Buddha. But to be an accomplished Tibetan scholar with understanding of all four schools, that's what you need.

Discussion of The Dalai Lama as a Secondary Source in Tibetan Buddhism

Please don't hesitate to correct any mistakes I make here, however minor. Robert Walker (talk) 10:53, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

(NB Dorje gives a list of Western scholars who have reached various levels of understanding and proficiency in the Tibetan texts below, and one of them has completed the Geshe Lharampa degree, the highest academic degree granted in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, see #Western-trained_scholars_who_are_practicing_Buddhists so that answers this question I asked, yes at least one scholar has done this).

Alex Wayman. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:01, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Regarding Roberts point of the Dalai Lama being a scholar, this is comparable to the situation of the current Pope and the previous Pope, both of whom are scholars in Catholic theology. Jonathan, in your view, does the Pope qualify as a secondary source in matters of Catholic theology? Do you consider the Pope to be a reliable source on these matters? Dorje108 (talk) 19:54, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I don' know - I really don't know. I find him an inspiring person, though. But then, I'm not a Catholic. Most Catholics that I know don't even take him serious as a primary source. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 22:17, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Just to say, I know nothing about this, about how much, how reliably, and how widely various Popes are regarded as scholars - but I'd have thought this would depend on the Pope, and how reliable and excellent their scholarship is, just as with the Dalai Lamas where not all the previous Dalai Lamas would be regarded as experts on Tibetan scholarship, but the current Dalai Lama is. I.e. that being a Pope or a Dalai Lama doesn't automatically qualify you as a suitable scholar to use as a secondary source. But it wouldn't automatically disqualify you also. Just a thought. Robert Walker (talk) 02:27, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Christian scholars are secondary sources as to Christianity. Pope Benedict XVI was not only a Pope but a Catholic scholar and academic, and would be considered a secondary source, because he had studied Christian primary sources. Any effort to disqualify scholars from the status of secondary sources simply because they believe their religion is itself POV-pushing. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:07, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The current emperor of Japan, Akihito, is a notable Ichthyologist and expert on the history of Japanese Science from 1603 to 1912. The Dalai Lama is recognized for his scholarly understanding of the Tibetan teachings by other Tibetans. He needn't have been.Of course you would expect that he would practice the Tibetan meditations and teachings but needn't have gone into the scholarly side of the things as he did - he could have been a poet for instance, like the Sixth Dalai Lama. That's how I've understood it anyway. :)..Robert Walker (talk) 03:21, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

The Gelug school, including the Dalai Lama, has highly unusual perspectives on many topics which are not shared by the other Tibetan Buddhist schools. See HERE for example.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 20:00, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Victoria, the Dalai Lama though a Gelugpa has also trained in the other four traditions and practices them also.

As for how unusual the Gelugpa views are, I don't know, I've always understood, just a branch of Buddhism which differs from some of the Tibetan traditions in subtle views of emptiness teachings, and in attitude towards Buddha nature - so somewhat different, but less different than say most of the branches of Tibetan Buddhism are from the Therevadhan or say Zen versions of Buddhism.

Your link talks about some kind of a controversy about the nature of a vision that appeared to Je Tsong Khapa - but as it doesn't say what the controversy is about - what element of the Gelugpa teachngs and no responses by the Gelugpas to those criticisms, or other views on the matter, I don't know what to make of it, I didn't know of this until you linked to it. But my impression is that the difference surely isn't so hugely different as, for instance, to mean that the Gelugpas are considered not to be Buddhist?

My understanding, at least from perspective of the Nyingmapa teachings, is that to receive teachings in a vision is not by itself considered something of concern, as the Tibetan traditions accept the idea of new teachings arising spontaneously, to help transmission of Buddhist teachings to modern times, either as "termas" that were laid down in the past for future discovery when needed, or as new discoveries of ways to teach and present the dharma that arise spontaneously. In this they are like the Zen Buddhists to some extent.

So the issue for any particular teaching received in a vision would center more about the nature of that vision, if it was inspiration from non self and enlightened in origin, or from the parts of the mind and understanding that arise from clinging to illusory ideas. That's about all I can say, general points as I know nothing about this controversy but as I've understood, as been explained more generally. Others here may know more about it. Robert Walker (talk) 02:11, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

• Any statements/paraphrases would need to include "According to HH the 14th Dalai Lama, ...". With that caveat, yes of course his statements about the nature and content of Tibetan Buddhism can be used as secondary sources on Wikipedia. Any significant (widely reported) opposing or contrasting viewpoints should also be included and attributed. Softlavender (talk) 02:42, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

The Dalai Lama would be a primary source.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 03:12, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Attributing a source doesn't make it a secondary source. Maybe we should move this whole discussion to the talkpage of WP:RS, since some people here basically want to change the set policy in the difference between religious texts and scientific texts. Religious texts may be considered scholarly in the context of their religion, since they reflect a lot of religious learning, but does not make them also scientific validated texts. See Johannes Calvin for an example. Highly regarded by Orthodox Protestants, reflecting a lot of (religious)scholarship, but definitely not science. There's a basic difference between religion, and texts aiming at religious education and training, on the one hand, and science, and scientific texts aiming at a critical understanding of events, at the other hand. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:07, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

You can't really make blanket statements like "The Dali Lama is a primary source" or "The Dali Lama is a secondary source". In just what context? If, as a scholar, he writes a study of a particular text or practice which carefully compares the views of previous Buddhist writers it is one thing; but if he explains a text based on his own first hand experience in meditation, or simply on his own views or the views of his teachers, it is another. Sometimes he might do both - so whether he is a primary source or secondary source could change from page to page or depending on the topic. Anyway even in cases where he is a primary source you can include his views - simply write something like "The Dalai Lama says that XYZ was taught by the Buddha" (with a reference to a book where he says this), but then you need to follow this with something like: "however the noted Buddhist academics, Drs. DEF and ABC, based on their text critical studies and historical research say that the doctrine or text of XYZ only appeared in the 3rd century" (again with proper references). Leave it up to the reader to decide which view on XYZ - the Dalai Lama's or the academics - they choose to believe. An article also does not need to be judgemental and say something like "the Dali Lama is wrong abot XYZ because some smart professors and their research have proved something different" nor is there any reason to exclude the views of a significant teacher like the Dali Lama on XYZ just because some important academics don't agree - but you do need to include both views and not base an article about XYZ only on the Dali Lama's views because you as a Buddhist believe the Dali Lama is right and the a academics are wrong. Chris Fynn (talk) 15:21, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

The whole issue of whether any source is primary or secondary is at best dubious in this context. The question is whether he is one which could be used. If the Dalai Lama presents statements in a capacity as a scholar of his school of Tibetan Buddhism, and those views are not wildly out of step with those of any other scholars who have expressed opinions on the matter, there is no clear-cut reason not to use him. If he presents divergent views in his official capacity as Dalai Lama, effectively making doctrinal statements for his school of Tibetan Buddhism, then he can be used for sourcing that as being the position of his school, just like similar statements from Catholic Popes would be. I will be the first to acknowledge that I haven't seen a lot of high quality reference works relating to Tibetan Buddhism, at least in part because I haven't looked yet. By later in the week, I can go through the recent online ALA Guide to Reference and list any titles which clearly relate to Tibetan Buddhism or Buddhism in general and post them here. I would assume any sources used in the better-received reference sources listed there would be reasonably acceptable for use by us for any similar content we might have as well. John Carter (talk) 15:30, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Chris Fynn and John Carter - sorry I think I may have given a wrong impression in this section. I wasn't trying to say that "the Dalai Lama is right and the Westerners are wrong". Just saying that he and other Tibetan qualified teachers are familiar with the Tibetan texts in a way that few Westerners are (though some are), and also that the texts are written in their native language. That doesn't mean of course that any interpretations that arise from that familiarity are "right". It is just a factor to consider, one of many, to suggest that it is probably beneficial, in an article on Tibetan Buddhism, to use some sources that are themselves Tibetans familiar with the texts in their own language. And that at any rate this familiarity and use of the same language as the texts in their everyday speech, and their tradition of memorizing many of the texts, shouldn't be used to disqualify them as secondary sources.

Dorje follows best practices on this just as you say. He covers the views of academics also in his version of the article. And just states their views as they present them themselves. Joshua Jonathan came up with more sources. These should I think just have been added in as a new section, and not used as a basis to rewrite the article. It is Joshua Jonathan who tells the reader what to believe, by saying, frequently, things like "scholar ABC noted that XYZ" - without mentioning other scholars that have other ideas and use of the phrase "note that" rather than "stated that" or "presented the thesis that" etc. Robert Walker (talk) 11:40, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you are doing yourself a favour here, RobertInventor. Going over and over about some "Western scholars" suggest that you have some pretty strong biased fixation about "some Western scholars" who would somewhat be in a different position that any other scholars. I have explained you earlier that we do not care here in Wikipedia whether the scholar is black or white, Western or Eastern, English speaking or Swahili speaking. I hope you understand to drop that. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:34, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Jayaguru-Shishya, yes, if only you were right, that would be great! I'm sure that's true of most here. And anyone who feels like that should support the RfC as that is what we wish to determine here. The only reason for all this is the way that the Four Noble Truths and the Karma in Buddhism articles have been recently rewritten from the perspective of this small group of Western scholars. Which means - de-emphasizing or removing completely sections of interest to mainstream "popular Buddhism" as the current main editor characterizes the likes of the Dalai Lama - and presenting the view that for instance Karma and the Four Noble Truths themselves were not present in the original teachings of the Buddha - which is I think not established, just a thesis of some scholars - with others taking the view that the differences in style are due rather to the sutras taking up stories from earlier traditions that predate the Buddha - and also in any case does not take away their centrality to modern Buddhism even if that were established. You can take a look at the articles in their present form and compare them with them as edited by User:Dorje108 to see what changes were made, in some cases quite large scale changes based on this idea that wikipedia should present this material following the ideas of these few scholars for both choice of material to include and how to present it. Robert Walker (talk) 22:15, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Distinction of multiple levels of secondary source

I think what we have here is not a distinction between primary and secondary sources, but a distinction between primary sources - in this case principally the sutras and the commentaries and other original texts - and various levels of secondary source.

So for instance, a Pali scholar studying the Pali canon and its commentaries would of course need an in depth level of knowledge of both Pali and the texts. Similarly for a Tibetan scholar studying the Tibetan texts. So there, though there may be a few Westerners who have attained the same in depth understanding, the best scholars are often those from traditional Buddhist countries because they are the main ones who have had the time and background to be able to do the amount of study needed here, especially in the vast Tibetan tradition.

But this doesn't make them primary sources. They are just secondary sources expert in the Pali, or Tibetan, or Chinese canon respectively.

Then you have other scholars who use them as sources, while also making occasional direct reference to the primary sources. So this doesn't make the first group of scholars primary because they do that. Just gives another level of secondary scholarship.

Then you also have other scholars who don't specialize in Buddhist studies but are perhaps philosophers, or anthropologists or theologians, and they then use a mixture of all the other secondary sources, but rarely make direct reference to the primary sources themselves. And again this doesn't make any of the previous sources "primary" because they do this.

So - I think this might be a more helpful way of looking at things. And - the ones who are furthest away from the groundwork of the Pali, or Tibetan scholars and such like - they are not necessarily always the best informed. Just depends. And it is possible for some of the scholars like Walpola Rahula and the Dalai Lama to be both expert in the details of scholarship in the original language of the texts - and also able to have an overview and be able to present those to a general audience. So these are particularly valued as secondary sources here, in my view because they have this direct access to the original primary texts as well as ability to communicate their understanding in a clear way.

So they should be regarded as excellent sources to use in articles on Buddhism, where available.

Where of course it all needs to be looked at carefully on a case for case basis. Expertise in the Pali canon doesn't make you necessarily someone who also has a good overview and general understanding. Doesn't automatically mean you are going to be respected as a scholar at that level. But it is a good thing to have in someone who does have that as well.

Robert Walker (talk) 10:53, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Western-trained scholars who are practicing Buddhists

I am supplying this list to provide a bit of perspective regarding the implications that there is a some kind of great gap between Buddhist practitioners and modern scholars. Jonathan has repeatedly expressed concerns about keeping up-to-date with the "latest research" of modern academics. The most significant trend that I am aware of over the past generation is that a large number of students who started out in academia have become practicing Buddhists and have also continued their academic careers. (There is also an increasing number of younger Buddhist students entering into academia.) The list below is just a partial list of prominent scholars that I am aware of. I am sure that there are many more.

• Jeffrey Hopkins – University of Virginia; studied with and translated for the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan scholars; a preeminent translator of texts from Tibetan into English
• Guy Newland – Central Michigan University; studied with Jeffery Hopkins and Tibetan teacher-scholars; translated text of teaching by the Dalai Lama
• Anne_C._Klein – Rice University; studied with several Tibetan teacher-scholars
• John Makransky – Boston College; author; studies with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche
• John D. Dunne – (PhD 1999, Harvard University) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University; he occasionally teaches for Buddhist communities, most notably the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe. He is a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute, a formal advisor to the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, and an academic advisor for the Ranjung Yeshe Institute.
• Michaela Haas - (PhD in Asian Studies 2008, University of Bonn), and is a visiting scholar in Religious Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara; author of "Dakini Power"
• Mark Epstein - received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University and is currently Clinical Assistant Professor in the Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis at New York University.
• Shenpen Hookham - Oxford scholar and Tibetan Buddhist lama
• Robert Thurman - the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University
• Thupten Jinpa - holds B.A. Honors degree in Western Philosophy and a Ph.D. degree in Religious Studies, both from Cambridge University, UK. He is a Visiting Research Scholar at the Stanford Institute for Neuro-Innovation and Translational Neurosciences at Stanford University.
• Lobsang Tenzin Negi - He began his monastic training at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics and continued his education at Drepung Loseling Monastery in south India, where he received his Geshe Lharampa degree, the highest academic degree granted in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, in 1994. Dr. Negi completed his Ph.D. at Emory in 1999; his interdisciplinary dissertation centered on traditional Buddhist and contemporary Western approaches to emotions and their impact on wellness. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Emory University's Department of Religion. (See http://religion.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/negi-lobsang.html)
• B. Alan Wallace - a bachelor's degree in physics and philosophy of science from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Stanford. He also founded and is President of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies.

Note that most (if not all) of the above scholars continue to study with Tibetan lamas. (I am most familiar with this tradition.) Jonathan, please clarify if you consider the above scholars to be secondary sources for explanations of basic Buddhist concepts (such as karma)? Do you consider these scholars to be reliable sources for basic Buddhist concepts? Dorje108 (talk) 20:57, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Mark Epstein is simply a guy who adapts Buddhism to western psychotherapy. He isn't a reliable source for Buddhism.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 21:07, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I think Mr. Epstein is trying to show the parallels between Buddhism and modern psychology, with the view that understanding in one field can aid in the understanding of the other field. I personally found his book Thoughts Without a Thinker to be very helpful. Regards, Dorje108 (talk) 22:46, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't care about modern psychology.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 23:13, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I do. And I like, for one, David Brazier. I find his book on the four truths highly recommendable - from a Buddhist point of view. From a scholarly point of view, I think that his re-interpretation of samudaya is questionable, to put it mildly. But from a Buddhist point of view, well, I like it personally. And then, again, I also know of orthodox Theravadins who think it's crap...
Dorje, thanks for coming up with this list. I think you're making a good point here (though "great gap" is too boldly stated, I think). I've been thinking it over, and I think that NeilN's comment from December 1 was a good one:

"The reliability and appropriateness of a source depends on the specific material being sourced. In some cases practitioners of the faith may be acceptable sources but academic sources are always preferred."

You're asking now for a general assessment; it might be better to assess specific instances. The basic issue for me was that you've kind of copied the writing-style of Tibetan Buddhists: a statement, and several quotes to illustrate or support the statement.

Regarding the use of "statements", or "definitions" which "cover it all", Gombrich has a good observation:

"Karl Popper has also warned against essentialism. He has shown that knowledge and understanding do not advance through asking for definitions of what things are, but through asking why they occur and how they work. (note 3) It is always of paramount importance to be clear, and for that purpose one may well need to give working definitions – to explain how one is using terms. In the course of justifying one’s usage one may of course say or discover something useful, as one may in the course of any piece of reasoning; but providing a definition is not in itself useful." (Richard Gombrich, How Buddhism Began, p.1-2)

With other words: why do Buddhists use the term "karma", or the "four (noble) truths", how did these terms evolve into concepts, how were they used in subsequent phases of Buddhist history? Context, not just "karma is..."!
Gombrich quotes Popper in the accompanying footnote:

"note 3: Popper, 1960: section 10, especially pp. 28–9 on methodological essentialism. Popper, 1952, vol. II, p. 14: ‘the scientific view of the definition “A puppy is a young dog” would be that it is an answer to the question “What shall we call a young dog?” rather than an answer to the question “What is a puppy?”. (Questions like “What is life?” or “What is gravity?” do not play any role in science.) The scientific use of definitions ... may be called its nominalist interpretation, as opposed to its Aristotelian or essentialist interpretation. In modern science, only nominalist definitions occur, that is to say, shorthand symbols or labels are introduced in order to cut a long story short.’

Popper, 1974:20: ‘... essentialism is mistaken in suggesting that definitions can add to our knowledge of facts ....’ In the last-cited passage Popper shows how essentialism involves the false belief ‘that there are authoritative sources of our knowledge’." (Richard Gombrich, How Buddhism Began, p.1-2, note 3)

An encyclopedia should condense information, and reflect all the relevant points of view. Using a lot of quotes is not condense. By choosing mainly modern Buddhist writers, who aim at a large western audience, you're not representing "all the relevant points of view", but specific modern interpretations. See McMahan's The Making of Buddhist Modernism.
So, to repeat: it depends on the context. And personally, I'd like to see how a concept evolved, to understand what it meant to specific people. And I'd like to see a reflection of the relevant scholarship, not just popular Buddhist teachers. The popular teachers we can all easily find; how do we make scholarship accessible?

See also WP:WPNOTRS:

"Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately. While they can be both reliable and useful in certain situations, they must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. While specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred. Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."

Also,

"Any analysis or interpretation of the quoted material, however, should rely on a secondary source (See: WP:No original research)."

Making a statement, giving a couple of quotes from modern teachers, is a kind of interpretation, c.q original research. Instead of saying "teacher X, Y, Z says...", it's turned into "Buddhism says". That's interpretation, and it's not a guarantee that "Buddhism" says so. The editor concludes so. Let me give one example: "The Buddhist theory of karmic action and result" [5]. "The theory" - is there any general idea of karma, common to all Buddhist schools throughout time? And theory - since when is karma a "theory"? Is there any empirical research from which a theory of karma is developed?

This being said: keep going. Both Buddhist teachers and Buddhist scholars (those from the universities) have a lot to offer. Best regards,Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:00, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

The introduction by Rocha and Baumann: Buddhism Buddhists and Scholars of Buddhism: Blurred Distinctions in Contemporary Buddhist Studies, and the articles by Reader, Makransky and Williams in Journal of Global Buddhism vol. 9 may be helpful. JimRenge (talk) 12:20, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

General point - just about all Christian theologians are practitioners of the faith of Christianity. So if you were to disqualify practitioners of a faith as secondary sources, you'd have to go to the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists as your only sources or main sources for articles on Christianity. Perhaps turning it around like this can help see the point of those who think that Buddhist teachers, especially notable scholars in their own traditions, are suitable sources for Buddhism?

And - another point here - in Buddhism, because the sutras are so extensive, and the teachings of the Buddha are one of the three refuges- Buddha, Dharma and Sangha - that there is a great emphasis on scholarship and has been since it started, perhaps more so than in the case of Christianity. The great Buddhist Nalanda University in India, flourishing from the 6th century up to its destrction around 1200 being an early example of this tradition which then continued in Tibet, Sri Lanka and China after the original university was destroyed. So they have a long heritage of scholarship in the East just as we do in the West. Robert Walker (talk) 14:02, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Jonathan, can you please address the question that I asked above? I am going to rephrase the question for clarity. Given the fact the above scholars are practicing Buddhists, would you exclude these scholars from being secondary sources for explanations of basic Buddhist concepts (such as karma)? Do you consider these scholars to be reliable sources for basic Buddhist concepts? Dorje108 (talk) 14:32, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

@Dorje: No, of course I wouldn't exclude them 'per se'. If they are reliable depends on the quality of their works, the context, et cetera. Jeff Shore, for example, is a Zen-teacher, and a reputed one, and also a professor - at a Rinzai-Zen affiliated university. So, any teisho by him would be considered a primary source, though a reliable one for his students and other people who like his teachings. Any scholarly work, well, might qualify as RS, but could also be less reliable, give his affiliation with the Zen-institutes. It really depends on the context etc. So, no general "yes" or "no". Just like "karma is [definition]" is too simple.

@Robert: there are also historians of Christianity who are not Christians. This is not only about theology, it's about history and textual analysis. If the Pope says "Christ truly arose from death, the Bible says so," how would you judge that statement?

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:45, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there is any real problem with using books written by Buddhist academics who have received both traditional teachings and a western academic degree in Buddhist studies (like most of those Dorje108 mentions above) as sources - the only thing to be aware of is that in some cases (such as many books by Hopkins) they may largely reflect the position of only a particular school of Tibetan Buddhism (even one strand within a particular school) and not give a balanced view of the whole tradition - and that where a book is largely an uncritical translation (not a critical study) of a primary source, it should be regarded as a primary source itself. In most cases when writing academic books and articles these scholars maintain an objective view while at the same time they also have first hand knowledge of an insiders perspective. Works written by Tibetan lamas who have received no academic training in the western sense, whether these books were written in English or in Tibetan and translated by someone else, are another matter. While these books may be very useful, keep in mind that they are mostly aimed at a lay western audience and intended to promote whichever tradition of Buddhism that lama represents. On Wikipedia I think we should stick to Wikipedia's standards for sources, content and objectivity. Wikipedia can't be all things to all people. If people want to use books by Buddhist teachers as main sources, there are other places run by knowledgeable Buddhists such as the Rangjung Yeshe Wiki, where this is perfectly acceptable and appropriate and they welcome contributions too. Chris Fynn (talk) 13:09, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Discussion of use of quotes

I've moved your discussion thread here, Joshua Jonathan, as the RfC is focused on what counts as valid secondary sources, not about use of quotes. That would need a separate RfC, where it would be relevant in the support / oppose sections, but here it belongs in the Discussion I think. Done the same for my own reply on the same matter.

Discussion in the thread on Softlavender's Support statement:

Unless texts are controversial or minority viewpoints or unless the author is a primary creator of doctrine or thought. If and/or when in doubt, just put "According to ...", and this puts to rest all problems. If someone wants to add a differing view, then another "According to" can be added as contrast. Most Buddhist theological historians and commentators are Buddhists, just as historically most Christian theological historians are Christian, etc. This is to be expected. Softlavender (talk) 06:07, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Comment: it's a good solution, but it does not answer the question: are religious sources secondary sources? It also does not solve the basic problem: how many quotes do you put in an article? And if you do use quotes: which quotes? From secondary sources, or from primary? Secondary sources are to be preferred over religious sources. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:00, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I never mentioned quotes. Not sure where you got that. I also did not mention religious sources (except in referring to what not to use); not sure where you got that either. Softlavender (talk) 08:06, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

The amount of quotes is where this whole discussion started. The sources in question are religious sources, to my opinion. You're correct, you didn't mention that. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:04, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

and my comment on the matter in my Support:

For quotations in footnotes - I see no reason at all for removing them. AS a reader of Dorje108's articles I find it very helpful to have quotations in the footnotes, and it is no solution to move them to wikiquotes, as Joshua did, as you can't get to the quote from the footnote. And in the main text - Wikipedia:Quotations puts it, "quoting a brief excerpt from an original source can sometimes explain things better and less controversially than trying to explain them in one's own words" I think that is often the case here. Again as Dorje108 suggested, it needs to be considered case by case, but I personally found his articles much enhanced by the inline quotes. You know where you are with a quote. Robert Walker (talk) 14:29, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

And my comment on the scholarship of the New Kadampa Tradition

This is also a reason in favour of using more quotes in my view. Not just for major controversies like these ones. As soon as you enter an area of understanding that has different viewpoints put forward - as a reader you want quotes that you can attribute to particular authors - for this very reason of the differences of opinion. For instance the same basic idea may be expressed differently by a couple of Western scholars, by a Therevadhan scholar, by Tibetan scholars - in that case it can help to have quotes from them all to compare and contrast - I find that myself as one of the instructive things in the lists of quotes Dorje108 uses in his footnotes and sometimes in the main body of his articles. Robert Walker (talk) 14:29, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Note, reason for moving the discussion here is that we are getting no new Support or Oppose statements and I felt that it may help to keep focus on the main matter of the RfC in the Support and Oppose sections. Also good to have a separate section to discuss use of quotes to avoid getting derailed in the other discussion sections here. In the interest of keeping focus, I also trimmed my own Support statement down a bit as well. Also added a comment to hopefully help make the issue clear, neutrally worded. Hope this is acceptable. Robert Walker (talk) 13:48, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Wording of RFC

As NielN has pointed out previously, my orginal wording of this RFC could have been more clear. Note that I have reworded this RFC once to try to narrow the focus, but NielN has kindly suggested that the question could still be more clear. See User_talk:NeilN#RFC_re-worded_for_clarity

It has also become clear based on previous discussions that we need to clearly distinguish between the terms secondary sources and reliable sources. So I propose creating the following two new RFCs to deal with these issues separately:

• Sources should not be automatically excluded from being considered as secondary sources simply due to the fact that are written by Buddhist practitioners. Do you support this?
• Sources should not be automatically excluded from being considered as reliable sources simply due to the fact that are written by Buddhist practitioners. Do you support this?

In this case, the current RFC discussion would serve as a reference for the new RFCs. I think we really need to focus on one issue at a time to get to a resolution. Dorje108 (talk) 15:29, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Dorje, serious, I thinke you should post this RfC at the RS-noticeboard. The present policy is clear: secondary sources are preferred above primary sources. Your first question can only be answered with "yes". But this does not mean that sources written by Buddhist practitioners automatically qualify as secondary sources. The second question can also be answered with "yes", and also doesn't help any further, for the same reason. Sources should be judged separately on their merits. And it still doesn't adress the real issue: how do you use these sources? For giving an overview of all the relevant points of view, or for making general statements, based ony primary sources from contemporary teachers which all reflect the same point of view? I think it's up to you to answer that question, which I've stated above, and at the talkpages of both Karma in Buddhism and Four Noble Truths, and which has not been answered so far. That's the real issue. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:58, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Dorje108. My answer to both of your questions is yes. I think, however, that we are missing the point here. I don't think that the religious affiliation of an author is the question here; e.g. it doesn't matter whether a Christian scholar ihimself/herself is a Christian, a Hindu or a Buddhist. That just simply shouldn't matter. Of course there there might be - and there is - loads of reliable secondary sources on Buddhism by Buddhists, on Christianity by Christians, on Hinduism by Hindus. I don't doubt that at all.

Also, I'd like to point out that "nobody is a secondary source per se". The same scholar might have works that we consider primary sources - let's say on his/her own religious affiliation - and at the same time reliable secondary sources on the topic / other topics. One can have a novel about his/her personal thoughts and experiences, as well as a analytic work of science about the same topic area as well. You know what I mean? =P Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 18:30, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Taking Dalai Lama as an example... This is just my intuition here, but I am pretty sure that there is some scholarly follower of his who has brought his ideas into an academic framework. Can't we use such a source instead? It is not to discredit Dalai Lama in any manner. Actually, I think it's the exact opposite; the fact that one is being cited in scientific literature is just to increase one's notability. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:00, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

That would be a tertiary source. The RfC is asking about secondary sources. Softlavender (talk) 00:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

a. The Dalai Lama is a primary source. b. A tertiary source is like an encyclopedia.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 00:36, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

No, the Dalai Lama, as Buddhist scholar, is a secondary source. A primary source would be ancient Buddhist documents (the more ancient = the more primary). A tertiary source is an academic or historian commenting on, reporting on, and/or synthesizing what various secondary sources such as the Dalai Lama have stated or written. See WP:PSTS. Softlavender (talk) 01:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

DL is absolutely a primary source. WP:PSTS says encyclopedias are tertiary sources, as I said.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 01:08, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Victoria, you need to re-read what I wrote about primary and secondary sources, and fully re-read and learn the Wikipedia policy I quoted. Making blanket absolute claims with no reason (not to mention no citing of WP policy or guideline) not only makes no sense, it is not how Wikipedia works. Softlavender (talk) 01:16, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

You are clearly wrong. WP:PSTS says tertiary sources are things like encyclopedias.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 01:20, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is going on here, and why you are trying to deflect attention away from your claim that "DL is absolutely a primary source." I've already thoroughly explained why he isn't and explained to you, via WP policy, the difference between primary and secondary sources, which you have ignored twice now. Nobody is arguing what tertiary sources are. We are discussing your blanket and inaccurate and unsubstantiated claim that "DL is absolutely a primary source." Softlavender (talk) 01:28, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

The issue is that you are one order of magnitude off. You think that primary sources are secondary. And you think secondary sources are tertiary.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 01:30, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Since you have been consistently (three times now) unable to back up your claim that "DL is absolutely a primary source" via anything resembling Wikipedia policy or guidelines, I'm going to take that as an admission that you know your claim is inaccurate. This will let the dialogue in this section move to more constructive avenues. Softlavender (talk) 01:37, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

You haven't been able to acknowledge that your definition of tertiary is wrong (4 times now). Let me try to explain this again:

• a. The Dalai Lama is a primary source.
• b. David Kay or George Dreyfus citing the Dalai Lama in an academic book is a secondary source.
• c. An encyclopedia is a tertiary source.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 01:40, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

No, per WP:PSTS, the Dalai Lama, as Buddhist scholar, is a secondary source: "an author's interpretation, analysis, or evaluation of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. Secondary sources are not necessarily independent or third-party sources. They rely on primary sources for their material, making analytic or evaluative claims about them." Per Wikipedia:Party and person, "'Secondary' does not mean 'independent' or 'uninvolved'." Per WP:PSTS, a primary source would be ancient Buddhist documents: "Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, ... and so on.... 'Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. Primary sources were either created during the time period being studied, or were created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied' .... 'A primary source is a first-hand account of an event.'" Per WP:PSTS, a tertiary source is an academic or historian commenting on, reporting on, and/or synthesizing what various secondary sources such as the Dalai Lama have stated or written: "[T]ertiary sources ... sum up multiple secondary sources. ... Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other." Softlavender (talk) 02:03, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. You are purposely misquoting WP:PSTS. It actually says "Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources." I highly suggest you also Google "tertiary sources". Tertiary sources are encyclopedias, almanacs, guidebooks etc.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 02:09, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I have not misquoted WP:PSTS; I have quoted exactly. It says "[T]ertiary sources ... sum up multiple secondary sources. ... Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other." It does not say anything whatsoever about tertiary sources being exclusively encyclopedias. It further goes on to state that "Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources" (emphasis mine), as I have stated. Meanwhile you have for the fifth time skirted the issue of backing up with Wikipedia policy your claim that "DL is absolutely a primary source." Softlavender (talk) 02:17, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Like WP:PSTS states, tertiary sources are compendia like encyclopedias, almanacs, guidebooks, textbooks etc. Try Googling "tertiary sources" if you don't believe Wikipedia policy.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 02:24, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Victoria, the Dalai Lama is a secondary source on the Tibetan Buddhist texts, because he is acknowledged as an expert on this - just as a Pali Scholar is a secondary source on the Pali canon and commentaries. He is however a primary source on the Dalai Lama, if an article is about, say, what the Dalai Lama thinks about the Chinese situation in Tibet he would be a primary source. Similarly the emperor of Japan is a secondary source in an article on the history of science in Japan from 1603 to 1912 or on ichthyology - but a primary source in an article on emperors of Japan. So is like that, nobody is a "primary source" per se - it depends what the topic is. Everyone is a primary source on at least some things - themselves (though if non notable not a notable primary source) and everyone is a secondary source on some things also. Hope this helps. Robert Walker (talk) 13:16, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Victoria, it is worth noting that the compendia variation of encyclopedias by and large do qualify as tertiary sources, as they are written in many or most cases by individuals who are basically just summarizing the statements of others. However, it has been found at the RSN that some encyclopedic articles, generally the longer ones, that are written by experts in the field are basically nondifferent from articles of the overview type which are fairly regularly found in academic journals and other scholarly sources, and on that basis those articles by leading experts in the field for our purposes basically qualify as secondary sources. Regarding the status of the Dalai Lama, he would be a primary source for his own opinions on the Pali Texts, but, as someone who is not directly involved in the writing of the Pali Texts themselves, even though he is the leader of a religious group, he would qualify as a secondary source on the Pali Texts, and given the amount of time he's probably studied them probably a good one, but a primary source for his tradition's views of the Pali Texts. If individuals do wish to continue to debate this point, may I suggest that they go to the RSN and seek input from others who are more familiar with the gradations and nuances which are occasionally involved in sources of this type. John Carter (talk) 17:17, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Noone is disputing that tertiary sources can sometimes be used.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 17:21, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with John Carter on the most part. However, I'd like to repeat myself: "nobody is primary or secondary per se". It totally depends on the piece of work.

For example, if Dalai Lama is telling about how sunyata should correctly be understood, then we are speaking about a primary source. If he, however, analytically studies the different conceptions of sunyata in a scientific manner, and is referring to primary sources, then we are speaking about a secondary source (academics). To repeat myself, only sources can be primary or secondary, not persons. The same guy might have works that we consider as primary sources, as well as works that we consider secondary.

The religious affiliation of the author? It shouldn't play any role. The ethnicity? That one neither. Being western or being eastern? No, not at all. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:32, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The Bible is a primary source. Marthin Luther commenting on that, though, doesn't make his commentaries a secondary source. It is still a primary source. Why? Because it is not an academic study, but merely him sharing his own interpretations on the subject. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:37, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support the two statements [* Sources should not be automatically excluded from being considered as secondary sources simply due to the fact that are written by Buddhist practitioners. Do you support this? * Sources should not be automatically excluded from being considered as reliable sources simply due to the fact that are written by Buddhist practitioners. Do you support this?], per Wikipedia:Party and person: "'Secondary' does not mean 'independent' or 'uninvolved'." (bolding in original). Softlavender (talk) 02:21, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose the two statements.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 04:45, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

If you take the wording of this policy literally, yes, then the DL is a secondary source. Like any Buddhist or religious teacher, who comments on other texts in their tradition. It makes Nagarjuna also a secondary source, and Tsongkhapa, and anyone who reads his favorite interpretation in any kind of text: "Read it, that's what it says!" Et cetera. It's clear that this is a too literal interpretation of this policy.

I think this document is of great value here: McRae, John (2005), Critical introduction by John McRae to the reprint of Dumoulin's A history of Zen (PDF). McRae explains that Dumoulin's A history of Zen, a scholarly source on the history of Zen, by a professor, is no longer regarded as a secondary source, but as a primary, since Dumoulin had a specific, religious interpretation of the history of Zen. He had become part of the history he was trying to explain. That was an academic scholar. How much the more for a religious leader?

Here's a specific assessment of the DL: The Four Noble Truths, by the DL. In the intro, the DL notes that the buddha taught in different ways, and that there are different philosophical schools. He explains this by stating that "he taught what was suitable according to the position of his listeners." The explanation of the DL is a standard explanation from the Mahayana-tradition to explain such differences.

It's clear that this is not a scholarly source, but a primary source. Which is completely fine in itself. But from what I read, I wouldn't take the DL too serious as a source for contemporary scholarship on the four truths. I wouldn't even take him too serious as a source on the traditional Gelugpa-teachings, since I have no idea how fatefull he is to those teachings, or how much he's deviating from them in public lectures. We'll need secondary sources, real secondary sources, to be informed about that. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:34, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

But, Joshua, the same is true of Western academics. I've read some Western academic papers, especially those from the recent online Revisioning Karma conference, with what I think most even Western scholars would regard as extremely eccentric views on the Buddhist teachings. Still - they are secondary sources. And hard to say whether to call them reliable or not - what do you say when you have different secondary sources saying different things? I've been arguing on the Karma talk page that the authors of the papers of Revisioning Karma should not be regarded as favoured sources on Karma because they are not writing as a "view from nowhere". Nobody is.

In their case they come from a background of theologians mainly, who have the idea of an absolute good that applies to everyone, rather than we each having our own dharma or path to follow as in the Eastern religions. They also have the idea of phrasing everything in terms of a problem of evil, rather than a problem of suffering or unsatisfactoriness because many theologians are pre-occupied with the issue of how a just Deity who is also omniscient and omnipotent can permit suffering. This of course is not an issue in Buddhism at all. So - they have this slant on the whole thing. Reading as a Westerner is easy to miss slants on the debates and issues if they happen to be views you also share yourself unquestioning. Robert Walker (talk) 14:43, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

So here also you have, amongst Western scholars your source Carol Anderson saying that the original version of the sutras had no mention of the four noble truths. But another respected western scholar Selwyn Cousins who says that her arguments miss the point in many places, misunderstands the work of previous scholars, and is plain wrong (he is too polite a reviewer to draw attention to this in his conclusion, but read the body of the text and he says this about many particular things she says and totally opposes her main thesis, says it doesn't make any sense that a sutra could have consisted originally of just a brief statement of the middle way and nothing else, which is what would be left if you removed all mention of the four noblel truths). And most scholars haven't reviewed or commented on her book as far as I can see.

And at the other extreme, you have the likes of Prayudh Payutto who argues strongly that the Pali Canon is essentially unchanged since the time of the Buddha - with decent arguments in favour of his view. It's not just an assertion of faith - he examines in detail the available evidence about the methods of memorization used by the monks and concludes that it is entirely possible that the sutras do preserve the teachings of the Buddha essentially unchanged with only minor modifications.

So you can't expect secondary sources to agree.

And - if some of their views are due to their upbringing - surely Prajudh Payutto is somewhat predisposed to expecting them to be unchanged due to his background - but so long as he follows accepted methods of scholarship, so long as he puts forward good arguments based on present understanding of the science, archaeology etc - it is not a point against him as a secondary source that his is a natural view for someone to have of his origins. Because Westerners also have a wide range of predispositions also, what seem natural views to them based on their upbringing. Everyone brings something different to the situation. So - so what if some of the Dalai Lama's interpretations can be traced to his origins as a Tibetan trained in the Tibetan traditions? That doesn't make him an invalid secondary source. What matters is how he supports those interpretations, what his reasoning for them is, does he use valid arguments? Is it like philosophy a case where you often can't make a decision, what's the basis for it? And he is one who of all the Tibetan Lamas is perhaps one of the ones who has shown especial interest in dialog with scientists, and interested in scientific findings of all sorts, and has done so for many years, also meeting with and discussing with top scientists. Robert Walker (talk) 13:27, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

This is not an RfC yet, and there is no discussion section, so that's why I'm commenting on your "oppose" Robert Walker (talk) 13:29, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Regarding "Revisioning Karma": Charles Prebish, Damien Keown, and Dale S. Wright are respected scholars. It looks like you're simply not interested in modern scholarship, nor willing or able to understand it. I guess you didn't read John McRae? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say, don't use them as secondary sources. Didn't say they are not respected scholars.

All I'm saying is that they also have a slant. Everyone does. The Dalai Lama does. Prayudh Payutto does. Walpola Rahula does. Richard Gombrich does. Peter Harvey does. And that's recognized. The Wikipedia guidelines don't say that you should look for a secondary source that has no slant. That woudl be absurd. Indeed they say this:

Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#There.27s_no_such_thing_as_objectivity

"This most common objection to the neutrality policy also reflects the most common misunderstanding of the policy. The NPOV policy says nothing about objectivity. In particular, the policy does not say that there is such a thing as objectivity in a philosophical sense—a "view from nowhere" (to use Thomas Nagel's phrase), such that articles written from that viewpoint are consequently objectively true. That is not the policy, and it is not our aim!"

The western academics don't provide a "view from nowhere" any more than the Dalai Lama does and I see no reason to give them special preference on this topic. Robert Walker (talk) 00:41, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion for wording of the RfC

Just a thought, Dorje108, might help to keep the discussion focused to include some example scholars in the RfC to focus the discussion on.

So for instance:

"Is it suitable to use Dalai Lama, Walpola Rahula, Prayudh Payutto and other Eastern trained scholars who are highly regarded for their erudition in the ancient texts as secondary sources for Buddhism for citations in articles on Buddhism in Wikipedia".

Where, you can choose whatever you think are the most highly regarded traditionally trained scholars, a selection of Tibetan, Therevadhan, etc, just a few, a list of some of the very most highly regarded current (or recent enough to be citable) non "Western academic" Buddhist sources in the world.

Then people can answer Oppose then is quite clear they are saying they don't think any of these are suitable as a secondary source in the articles. If they say support they think they are suitable. Those who think maybe they can be used occasionally or are not sure about some of them can vote with a comment or a "partial support" or whatever to make their position clear.

Then we might get a clear picture of - at least first stage of what may well be several RfCs to get it clear. If these are acceptable as sources, then others can be argued for on a case by case basis on article talk pages. It might also help editors to have a list like that of sources that are generally regarded as suitable sources to use for articles on basic concepts in Buddhism, it might be a useful project, just an idea, to start to map out such a list (not with the aim of being exhaustive but to help shortcut discussions for the scholars of most repute for newbie editors who might not have heard of them and might challenge them).

Just an idea as usual. Robert Walker (talk) 00:50, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

You mean: "Are publications by the Dalai Lama, Walpola Rahula, Prayudh Payutto secondary sources?" And the answer again is: it depends on the context, and the quality of the sources. The assessment of those three so far is clear: primary. Let me repeat: if any publication that comments on a religious text is "secondary", then almost all the religious literature is secondary. Including St. Paul, for instance. Even parts of the Sutta Pitaka are secondary by that standard, since they comment on Brahmanical and Jain ideas. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:50, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Well this is exactly what the RfC would be about. It is only your assessment here that is clear to you. Not to others. Because on the same argument your western academics would also be primary because many of them also are Pali scholars and study the texts themselves not just study those who comment on the texts. Your only reasoning for calling these scholars primary seems to be their ethnic origin and that they are trained in Eastern rather than Western centers of learning. Of course there are many commentaries on the sutras that are considered primary sources. Ancient ones mainly.

We need an RfC on this - and of those who have commented so far on this page, I think pretty clear that three of them would be in favour and three opposed to this RfC as I've just suggested it, unless anyone has changed their minds as a result of the discussion which is possible. It would be good to get more feedback about this, perhaps presenting it like this would help to get a wider discussion.

Just an idea. Robert Walker (talk) 13:06, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Please refrain from personal attacks, and don't accuse me of racism: "Your only reasoning for calling these scholars primary seems to be their ethnic origin." I've explained my reasons very clear; they seem to be understood by the majority of editors here; only you WP:DONTGETIT. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:42, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean it that way. By ethnic origin I didn't mean anything to do with their physical characteristics. All I meant there was their origins as traditional Buddhists educated in traditional Buddhist establishments of learning. As wikipedia puts it: "An ethnic group or ethnicity is a socially-defined category of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, social, cultural or national experience" see Ethnic group. So, you have identified a particular ethnic group, in this sense, and said that none of them are suitable as secondary sources in articles on Buddhism - if I understand your position correctly. If this is not what you mean, do explain so I understand your views better.

Once more sorry for any offence and it was totally not intended. Robert Walker (talk) 14:04, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The Gelug school, including the Dalai Lama, has highly unusual perspectives on many topics which are not shared by the other Tibetan Buddhist schools. The Dalai Lama writes from the perspective of the Gelug tradtion and is thus a primary source. Even when he talks about Dzogchen, he tries to correlate it to his own school's teachings.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 17:30, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

You haven't given us any details. Sorry I just don't know how to respond when someone says that, but with no details of what this "highly unusual" perspective is, especially as I've not heard anyone else say this myself, and I've talked to a fair number of both practicing Buddhists and Buddhist scholars, over the years, just casual conversations, friends, or friends of friends, also listened to many teachers, but don't remember anyone saying this. Robert Walker (talk) 18:43, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• For example: "In fact, the peculiar Gelugpa version of Madhaymaka is a minority position in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, since its uncommon features are neither found in any Indian text nor accepted by any of the other Tibetan schools." - Karl Brunnholzl.
• The Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, traditionally is in opposition to the other 3 schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Read up on Rimé movement.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 18:58, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Rewording, from Primary source#Other fields: "the objective of classifying sources is to determine the independence and reliability of sources." That's the whole point: independence. I think it's clear that the Dalai Lama is far from "independent" regarding Buddhism. Scholars may also have their dependecies, but 'in principe' (that's not correct English, is it?) they are idependent of the object being studied. That's all.

From the same section: "In religious history, the primary sources are religious texts and descriptions of religious ceremonies and rituals. (source: Research Guides at Tufts University, Primary Sources - Religion)."

Some Google-search: "Primary sources are "firsthand information – either direct or proximate – relevant to a topic or question" (Studstill & Cabrera, 2010, p. 89). Typical examples include scriptures, sermons, artifacts, interviews, letters, etc. Primary sources provide valuable data for research in religious studies. However, primary sources reflect the perspectives of religious believers and must be critically interpreted when used in academic research and writing. Primary sources provide factual information about the beliefs associated with particular religions; this does not mean that information is true in any other sense.[6]"

I hope this makes clearer the difference. If one thinks that an academic source isn't reliable also, well, then the specific source should be judged for its merits. See WP:RS etc. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:10, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that the main problem lies in the question itself. You see, no person can be "reliable source" per se. Instead, it totally depends on the piece of work. We've already discussed these things in the RfC above, so I guess there is no need to repeat the very same arguments here all over again?

Robert Walker, I admire your enthusiasm towards the topic, but perhaps you could also consider the possibility that we should not judge any source categorically based upon it's author / religious affiliation / ethnic backgrounds, but evaluate each source per the nature of the source? I mean, this is how I see it: a Buddhist scholar might carry out religious commentaries over some primary source(s), but the scholar might also perform academic studies on the subject. Equally, a Christian scholar might carry out religious commentaries, but still being able to have academic studies on the subject. Summa summarum, the religious background / ethnicity / identity of author shouldn't matter, but should only pay attention to the source itself. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:52, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

To me this somewhat like a case of getting the cart before the horse. The first thing to do is to determine what content the article in question should have. In a lot of cases, although clearly not all, particularly topics which have been subject to recent significant developments, the content of existing reference works of some sort dealing with the topic at hand are a very good indicator. Then, once you have some idea of what should be included in the article, and to what approximate weight, then it would certainly be reasonable to discuss which sources of whichever kind should be used for any particular statements. John Carter (talk) 21:01, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

John, the problem is that Joshua Jonathan has been doing this the other way around. He takes a long established mature article, and then deletes content from it purely because it cites the Dalai Lama or some such reference, and without discussion, on the basis that these are not valid secondary sources. And did it all in one wave of editing, leaving no time for any other editors to comment and without prior talk page discussion or discussion during the edit, just a "clean up" summary afterwards

So - if it was accepted that e.g. the Dalai Lama can be a valid secondary source on articles on Buddhism, at least sometimes - that could help dissuade editors from making these wholesale revisions of articles in this way. It would mean that such edits have to be discussed first and the content can't just be removed on the basis that it is content written by the Dalia Lama. I think that is the main reason for calling for this RfC. Robert Walker (talk) 00:34, 10 December 2014 (UTC).

Has WP:RSN been tried? They would tend to be generally regarded as the best place to raise such questions outside of perhaps this page. John Carter (talk) 00:38, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi John, thanks for your suggestion regarding WP:RSN. It seems Victoria has just started a conversation on that page, and I have added a comment with a link to our discussion. Regards, Dorje108 (talk) 05:09, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Secondary and/or Primary Sources - comment

I was attracted to this conversation at the village pump. I don't have a dog in the fight. On general principle, I believe the more sources the better. More specifically, it seems to me that most editors who try to define and reject a source as a "primary source" do so as a way of wiki-lawyering in order to obstruct the development of articles in areas which they dislike.

A true "primary source" is one that is heavy on data and has no synthesis of that data. A table of recorded temperatures over the world over the last 100 years is a primary source. An analysis of that data, published in a scientific journal which includes a literature review of related studies is actually a secondary source -- both because it provides an analysis of the primary source (the data) and a review of other studies.

Similarly, works on religion and philosophy which include an interpretation and analysis of sacred texts, commentaries, and traditions is a secondary source -- especially to the degree the author is asserting to be expounding on what has already been taught or learned. To the degree that an author steps out and describes a "new discovery" -- then, that portion of the work may be considered a "primary source." But the fact that a single source may include both secondary source material and primary source material should not prevent it from being used as a secondary source in regard to the material being synthesized and reviewed.

Now, I read above that part of the problem is with people deleting content based on their preferred sources. I think it is best practice to retain content, but add additional content reflecting other viewpoints and sources. The fact that sources disagree is itself significant. One of the main values of these articles is that it gives someone who is beginning to research the topic an opportunity to find references to a wide variety of angles on the topic.

To the question: ""Is it suitable to use Dalai Lama, Walpola Rahula, Prayudh Payutto and other Eastern trained scholars who are highly regarded for their erudition in the ancient texts as secondary sources for Buddhism for citations in articles on Buddhism in Wikipedia?", I would answer an unequivocal yes. I would add, however, that in any cases where one of these parties is relied upon making statements others find controversial, that the text in the article be amended to say something of the sort, "according to Rahula," so that the attribution is not limited simply to the footnote, but is made more clearly in the body of the article, thereby emphasizing that it is one opinion on the matter, not necessarily shared by all. -- GodBlessYou2 (talk) 04:25, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, the attribution should be made in the text itself not just footnotes. It is in Dorje's version of the page, wherever relevant, he says who is the author of every view cited. I don't think Joshua Jonathan has any issues with mistaken attribution in the text he deleted, at any rate if he has, hasn't mentioned it in the talk page discussions AFAIK. Robert Walker (talk) 10:06, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Primary sources are not "banned" from use in Wikipedia articles — provided they are used properly and with care. Chris Fynn (talk) 22:44, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Compromise

I've proposed a compromise to Robert: he says which parts of the "old" version he really likes, and would like to preserve, and then we go through it and see how to preserve it. A lot of the info from the old versions is still there, but condensed; Djlaiton4 jsut reinserted some info at "Four Noble Truths"; and I'll have to look again at the Theravada-part. Also, Andi3o just re-ordered the Four truths-article, which is fine with me too. A list can be made at the talkpage of "Karma in Buddhism", and then we can try to work this out together. See also WP:ONLYREVERT:

"The first and foremost alternative to reverting when you find you disagree with an edit is to find a third version of the text that incorporates at least some of the elements of the prior text and the current text."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:10, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The problem is, that - I know enough to recognize some obvious mistakes, yes. And can recognize that some sections that have been left out that should definitely be included. But my knowledge is very limited, as is clearly that of the other editors on the page as they didn't spot even the errors that I pointed out there. And are many sections on the previous version of the page where I found out about these things for the first time through reading Dorje's article. So obviously not the person to say if they should be included or not!

Also, I would not like to be involved myself in paraphrasing and commenting on paraphrases of quotes. Because - this is an area which is so easily misunderstood and very hard to explain clearly.

Take an example, this section

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Karmic results are nearly impossible to predict with precision

The precise results of a karmic action are considered to be one of the four imponderables.

In the Buddhist view, the relationship between a single action and its results is dependent upon many causes and conditions, and it is not possible for an ordinary being to accurately predict when and how the results for a single action will manifest. Ringu Tulku Rinpoche states: (Karma - Rigpa wiki)

Sometimes, in order to help us understand how particular actions contribute to particular kinds of result, such as how good actions bring about good results and how bad actions bring about bad results, the Buddha told stories like those we find in the Jataka tales. But things do not happen just because of one particular cause. We do not experience one result for every one thing that we do. Rather, the whole thing—the entire totality of our experience and actions—has an impact on what we become from one moment to the next. Therefore karma is not just what we did in our last life, it is what we have done in this life too, and what we did in all our lives in the past. Everything from the past has made us what we are now—including what we did this morning. Strictly speaking, therefore, from a Buddhist point of view, you cannot say that there is anything in our ordinary experience that is not somehow a result of our karma.

Bhikkhu Thanissaro explains: (Bhikkhu Thanissaro|2010|pp=47-48)

Unlike the theory of linear causality — which led the Vedists and Jains to see the relationship between an act and its result as predictable and tit-for-tat — the principle of this/that conditionality makes that relationship inherently complex. The results of kamma experienced at any one point in time come not only from past kamma, but also from present kamma. This means that, although there are general patterns relating habitual acts to corresponding results [MN 135], there is no set one-for-one, tit-for-tat, relationship between a particular action and its results. Instead, the results are determined by the context of the act, both in terms of actions that preceded or followed it [MN 136] and in terms one’s state of mind at the time of acting or experiencing the result [AN 3:99]. [...] The feedback loops inherent in this/that conditionality mean that the working out of any particular cause-effect relationship can be very complex indeed. This explains why the Buddha says in AN 4:77 that the results of kamma are imponderable. Only a person who has developed the mental range of a Buddha—another imponderable itself—would be able to trace the intricacies of the kammic network. The basic premise of kamma is simple—that skillful intentions lead to favorable results, and unskillful ones to unfavorable results—but the process by which those results work themselves out is so intricate that it cannot be fully mapped. We can compare this with the Mandelbrot set, a mathematical set generated by a simple equation, but whose graph is so complex that it will probably never be completely explored.

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Which we are discussing at present on the talk page. There he has cited one Therevadhan source, quoting from "The Wings to Awakening: an Anthology from the Pali Canon" by Thanissaro Bhikkhu - surely an acceptable Therevadhan source, and Ringu Tulku, of the Rimé movement, a movement that respects the differences between the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and tries to simply set them all out clearly as they are.

Anyway whatever you say about the sources, all I could say is that - definitely this section is needed, in all this detail. But if any attempt was made to paraphrase what they say - I would respectfully decline. I don't want to paraphrase material like this and have what I write be put up in wikipedia in the content of an article. I'd be bound to make mistakes. Sorry I just won't be drawn into paraphrasing this content or commmenting on the accuracy of the paraphrases. It is just too subtle for me, beyond my abilities.

So - for all this - for what should be included, for choice of sources, and paraphrasing and quotes, use Dorje108. He is a good editor, and he knows what he is talking about. And engage in discussion with him. He is not dogmatic, he will listen to what you say. If it is still an issue and you can't resolve it, do an RfC on whatever the issue is. I will help as I can e.g. comment on discussions or RfCs. But I don't want to be involved as an editor of the article myself. Sorry! Robert Walker (talk) 13:19, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

But - I wonder if Dorje is interested, is this a suitable way ahead, User:Dorje108. To talk about sections of the old article one at a time, and reintroduce them? Given that it doesn't seem likely that a rollback can be forced if Jonathan doesn't want to do it. And Jonathan - are you willing to work with him? I wonder if there is any possibility of a way forward here.

So anyway don't know if this is possible, but suggest, if we do this, that still we need to resolve the matter of whether it is okay to use Tibetan and Thai and Sri Lankan scholars as sources first - you need those ground rules sorted out as otherwise it can never work.

Also, on use of quotations in footnotes (there if we do an RfC on that, I would be interested to see what are your detailed reasons for removing them all) - and the matter of whether to use quotes or paraphrasing in the articles themselves. Otherwise those would be questions that keep coming up over and over on the talk page for each section discussed.

If we do paraphrasing, I think you need to be aware that this is likely to be a long process needing careful work and much discussion for each of the quotes paraphrased. Would be easier if that was established policy long ago, as we would now have paraphrases for them all. But in case where there are now many collected quotes, and none of them paraphrased, it is likely to be a lot of work to go through paraphrasing them all. I could imagine some hours of editor time, and a fair bit of discussion needed to work out a good paraphrase of just the two quotes given above. To me this seems rather unnecessary when we already have the quotes that express the ideas so clearly. But that's my own POV on this question, and of course a case where differences of opinion are understandable :). Robert Walker (talk) 13:27, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I am opposed to the citation of nonacademic material.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 18:37, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

But why just "western academic credentials", VictoriaGrayson? Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 18:51, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, it would help to provide a clearly stated reason for such opposition, and a clear definition of the term "nonacademic material", and I don't know that I've seen either of those yet. John Carter (talk) 18:53, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Both Ringu Tulku and Bhikkhu Thanissaro are internationally respected scholars, translators and authors. In the above quotes they are explaining a very subtle point (that is frequently misunderstood) extremely clearly. It is difficult to understand why Jonathan felt the need to delete this material from the article. Here is a quote from Peter Harvey emphasizing the same point:

The law of karma is not regarded as rigid and mechanical, but as the flexible, fluid and dynamic outworking of the fruits of actions. The full details of its working out, in specific instances, are said to be ‘unthinkable’ (acinteyya, Skt acintya) to all but a Buddha (A.IV. 77). A moral life is not necessarily immediately followed by a good rebirth, if a strong evil action of a past life has not yet brought its results, or a dying person regrets having done good. Similarly, an immoral life is not necessarily immediately followed by a bad rebirth (M.III. 209– 15 (SB. 195– 204)). The appropriate results will come in time, however (Dhp. 71). -- Harvey, Peter (2012-11-30). An Introduction to Buddhism (Introduction to Religion) (p. 42). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

And here Rupert Gethin also emphasizes the same points:

Buddhist thought does not understand causality in terms similar to, say, Newtonian mechanics, where billiard balls rebound off each other in an entirely predictable manner once the relevant information is gathered. First, the Buddhist attempt to understand the ways of causal conditioning is concerned primarily with the workings of the mind: the way in which things we think, say, and do have an effect on both our selves and others. Second, Buddhist thought sees causal conditioning as involving the interaction of certain fixed or determined effects and certain free or unpredictable causes. If, presented with a situation, I deliberately kill another human being, this action must lead to some unpleasant result in the future; it may also make it easier for me to kill in the future, eventually establishing something of a habit; and this may lead me into circumstances—life as a bandit, say, or rebirth as a tiger—where the only way to live is by killing; and yet in some measure the freedom not to kill, not to act in accordance with established habits, remains. -- Gethin, Rupert (1998-07-16). The Foundations of Buddhism (pp. 153-154). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

I find the assertion that someone should just "paraphrase" these very subtle points to be naive. It is extremely difficult to sum up these concepts succinctly. All of the scholars quoted above have spent most of their lives contemplating these concepts and trying to figure out how to best explain them in plain English. To paraphrase these explanations without a deep understanding of what they are saying is extremely difficult. In most cases the reader will be far better served by reading the original quote from the scholar. Dorje108 (talk) 03:16, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes it is easy to condense a longer quote into a shorter paraphrase, sometimes not. Sometimes paraphrasing improves the readability of the article, sometimes not. It depends on the context and on the ability/expertise of the editor. In any case, a good quote on an important subject is way better than leaving out the subject altogether.Andi 3ö (talk) 12:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Copied to Talk:Karma in Buddhism#Karmic results are nearly impossible to predict with precision - rewrite

CLOSE THIS RFC!

Would the original person who opened this up as an RfC please speedy close it? It was poorly worded, overbroad and now we are generating more heat than light. The real issue here is that some sources have to be handled on a case by case basis. The question was one incapable of generating a hard and fast rule. The WP MOS offers guidance on primary and secondary sources, and primary sources can be used in certain circumstances, while WP:RS secondary sources are preferred. End of story. Montanabw^(talk) 00:36, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Montanabw The thing is though - the question is about - what counts as secondary sources? In the West we have Western academics and theologians.

So - are there any valid secondary sources like those in the East? Or are they all primary sources?

Of course there are many Buddhists that have not followed a scholarly path. But there are many that have.

So for instance, there are many Buddhist scholars such as the brilliant Thai Scholar Prayudh Payutto, expert on the Pali canon.. And in other Buddhist countries such as Tibet then they also have their own scholarship and academic courses - including a Tibetan "higher degree" that takes ten years to complete. So, though many of them teach as well - they are their equivalent of our scholars and theologians, rather than our popular teachers.

Not saying they are exact equivalents of our theologians and Western academics. But - they have their scholars, trained in the traditional ways. Another example would be the Dalai Lama who has deep understanding of the Tibetan texts - and also has a great deal of interest in Western ideas of science, meeting with many Western scientists and discussing ideas with them.

So those of us who support the RfC say - that the very best of the Eastern scholars and academics, trained in Eastern institutions of learning rather than Western ones, are not primary sources to be used sparingly on a case by case basis - but are valid secondary sources that can be used as freely as any Western academic. And what they say doesn't have to be always filtered through the lens of Western academics, but can be simply presented on its own right.

Those who are opposed feel that all of these are primary sources and need to be reinterpreted and understood in the light of Western academic treatments of Buddhism.

And this has an effect on the articles. This is how the two articles were rewritten, recently, with the editor involved giving as his main motivation for the rewrite, that the Eastern scholars are primary sources and should be used sparingly:

For Karma in Buddhism: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karma_in_Buddhism&diff=635624203&oldid=632340477

For Four Noble Truths: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Four_Noble_Truths&diff=635891831&oldid=629066305

So that's why we needed an RfC to clarify this point. Can the likes of Prayudh Payutto and the Dalai Lama be used as secondary sources? Is it acceptable for an article on Buddhism to have as many sources and quotes from the scholars from Eastern traditions as they have sources from Western academics? Or should they depend mainly on Western academic sources and use the Eastern sources only rarely, and treated as primary sources needing interpretation on the basis of the Western academic researches?

Hope that makes the reason for the RfC clearer? As you can see, at present five editors support the RFC and four oppose it. So - that would seem to confirm it is a point that needs clarification. DISCLAIMER as someone who supports the RfC then this description is probably a bit biased towards the Support side of things but I mean this just to give background rather than to persuade. Robert Walker (talk) 02:15, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

The way you phrased the RfC is vague and problematic, which prevents me from supporting, because it is unclear what is being supported: blind acceptance is a bad idea and a rigid rule would be particularly bad here for the very reasons you list above. One could say very similar things about Judaism, actually, or Christian mysticism. Primary sources are not forbidden on WP and really, it's all about the context. Works by the Dalai Lama about Buddhism (i.e. if he is speaking as a scholar and a theologian) are most likely secondary sources; works by the Dalai Lama about himself (i.e. if he is speaking of spiritual guidance or about his own story) may in some cases be primary ones. So it depends. That's why I suggest that the RfC be withdrawn and rephrased. Montanabw^(talk) 03:43, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay - that sounds like a "support" to me, as that was the main issue that lead to the RfC - the idea put forward by Joshua Jonathan that works by the Dalai Lama, Walpola Rahula, Prayudh Payutto written about Buddhism, speaking as a scholar and their equivalent of a theologian - are primary sources. So maybe we are missing on some people who would support the RfC because of the wording? It's Dorje who wrote the RfC, and we have had some discussion of wording above. I think he is considering doing another RfC. Not too unusual to have several RfCs one after another as the issues get clarified. I think it's been helpful already, the things that have been said, have at least helped to clarify what some of the issues are. Robert Walker (talk) 15:43, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I voted oppose because the RfC was badly worded. I also suspect there is a hidden agenda going on also. You are putting words in people's mouths; you can't apply a blanket rule: works by the Dalai Lama may be primary sources in some situations and secondary sources in others. Also, Primary sources can sometimes be used. This was a really stupid proposal and someone is trying to obscure the real issue, which is probably either justification to add FRINGE material or else to degrade some mainstream source. Montanabw^(talk) 04:32, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I began this RFC to address one of the issues regarding recent edits by Joshua Jonathan. Joshua has been systematically re-writing the articles on Buddhism in a manner that emphasizes the point of view of selected Western academics and minimizes the point of view of contemporary Buddhist scholars, teachers and translators. One of Jonathan’s justifications for these edits has been that all texts by Buddhist practitioners must be considered as primary sources, and only texts by Western academics can be considered as secondary sources. One result of this RFC is that we have been able to clarify the meaning of primary and secondary sources and demonstrate that Jonathan’s assertions were not correct. The distinction between primary and secondary sources depends on the context. As one editor stated in a parallel discussion on the RS noticeboard

‘’As an additional question though, why on earth does the fact that they don't have western academic credentials in studies related to Buddhism matter? Why was it even brought up in the first place? Whether or not someone has academic (or any other sort) of credentials speaks towards reliability, not whether someone is a primary or secondary source. And even then it wouldn't discount the source - there are plenty of reliable primary and secondary sources whose authors have no formal academic credentials in the field whatsoever, and plenty who have no formal credentials at all.’’

Again, I am repeating this: what is this whole fuss about Western scholars? Has anybody said that Eastern scholars wouldn't do as well? How about Negro scholars, Latin scholars etc. etc.? So please, before anyone catches up with this discussion, we should better know what is this fuss all about in the first place. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:34, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

I think we have also at least clarified some other issues. While the wording of the RFC could have been more clear, I think the intention is clear and it is helpful to clarify the views of different editors. I will leave the RFC open for additional comments. Regards, Dorje108 (talk) 02:27, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

By "Contemporary Buddhist scholars" I think you mean the WP:FRINGE beliefs of the New Kadampa Tradition. Western academics are perfectly acceptable in the proper cotext, and Joshua Jonathan is a solid editor. Drop the stick Dorje108, your user name says it all, and are you yet another sock of Audrey37, by the way?

Montanabw, I am not sure where you got the idea about New Kadampa Tradition. No one on this page is advocating the use of NKT texts as sources. I agree that Western academics are very important sources. I have relied extensively on scholars such as Peter Harvey, Rupert Gethin, Paul Williams, Smith & Novack, Damien Keown, etc. But I also think the contemporary Buddhist scholars and teachers, such as Bikkhu Bodhi, Thich Naht Hanh, and the Dalai Lama are also very important sources. Regards, Dorje108 (talk) 01:19, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Western scholars? Have someone tried to discredit Eastern scholars then? Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:34, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

There are two issues here: WP:OVERQUOTE, and overusage of primary sources.

• You don't write an article by simply copy-pasting quotes. That's really poor editing. Several editors have taken issue with this over the past year-and-a-half, and you've simply ignored it. This is a public encyclopedia, not your private website. If you don't like the Wiki-policies on WP:RS, then use your own blog to store all those quotes.
• If we use primary sources, the question still remains: which primary sources. You have selected the quotes from primary sources, not some representative committee of Buddhist teachers. In your selection you have a very clear bias for contemporary, popular, western-middle-class-oriented teachers - those teachers who sell, who's books are at display in the western bookshops, who have training-centers in the west, and who are also involved in the politics of their home-countries. They are not representative for "Buddhism" "in general" (if anything like that exists except in the imagination of some westerners). Where's Nagarjuna? Where's Vasubandhu? Where's Pure Land Buddhism? Where's Dogen, Rinzai? Where's B. R. Ambedkar? Where's Chinese Buddhism?

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:23, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

By the way, you might as well have quoted John Carter from RSN:

"FWIW, I think it might be reasonable to say that in cases like this, which are topics which are substantively covered in reference works and overview works which are often written by authors who are not themselves within the tradition in question, I would say myself that any work cited as a reference in a long work or included in a reference in an encyclopedic or other short article would reasonably qualify as a preferable source. I am myself not sure whether that would necessarily be something which requires address in policy or at the village pump. John Carter (talk) 18:43, 10 December 2014 (UTC)"

I think you should keep this in mind when you are suggesting that I am editing in "a manner that emphasizes the point of view of selected Western academics and minimizes the point of view of contemporary Buddhist scholars, teachers and translators." Reducing my use of reliable sources to a "point of view" issue is tendentious, and misplaced relativism. See also my comment at the next section, "The issue of translation", about Japanese scholars who are also Buddhist practitioners.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:01, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan - Dorje uses carefully selected quotes. If you had an issue with the quotes he used - why did you say nothing at all in the eighteen months he worked on the article from Spring 2013? Why suddenly rewrite it now, removing all those quotes, when you have been an editor all this time of other articles on Buddhism here in wikipedia?

And - if in your view, an article does make too much use of quotes, the solution is not to simply delete all the sections that use quotes! At the very least, the quotes should be kept while one discusses what to replace them by. In this case there are good reasons for the quotes

• That it is a subtle difficult topic, one of the most difficult to describe in Buddhism. So for that reason it is often best to use quotes, that may present he idea more clearly than any wikipedia editor is likely to do.
• That it is also a topic that is treated differently and understood differently depending on the school of Buddhism, e.g. Therevadhan or Mahayana, and say Zen or Tibetan Buddhism. So again it is good to use quotes in a situation like that. Far easier than to attempt paraphrases of those diverse views by wikipedia editors that attempt to also bring out the distinctions between the schools. There is too much possibility of error if you do that.

Where quotes are appropriate, as several of us think they are here, then the wikipedia guideline is just to make sure the article is not a page of quotes. Which it was not. They were introduced, and explained to the reader, exactly as expected here.

And an editor who comes to a mature article, full of quotes, has never edited it before themselves, article has been stable for a long time with only minor changes, well - the first thing is surely - to discuss what to do next on the talk page? Go through one quote at a time, deciding what to do?

Not to just immediately remove all the quotes without discussion, and remove most of the sections also ditto? Do you not think a slower approach might have been advisable?

Might that perhaps still be advisable, to roll back and go through the process more slowly, explain your reasoning, and let us all discuss if this is the right way to proceed, or what to do? For both of these articles that you treated in this way? Robert Walker (talk) 03:21, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Robertinventor- if the problem is that there are too many quotes, identify what is redundant and move it to its own article or a subsection that discusses the topic in greater depth. If the problem is that the selection of quotes presents a view that is biased towards a particular source, begin by identifying the tradition within the text and remedy the situation by adding additional sources from other traditions. Large scale rewrites are almost inevitably unproductive. Could we perhaps begin by identifying a particular article that evidences the issue and moving the discussion there for anyone who wishes to continue? --Spasemunki (talk) 08:45, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I have repeatedly pointed out that several editors have taken issue with WP:OVERQUOTE at Four Noble Truths, without avail. See Talk:Four Noble Truths#Too many quotes:

"Agree. A lot of them could be moved to WikiQuotes. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:08, 15 October 2014 (UTC)"

"The overuse of quotations (Wikipedia:Quotations#Overusing_quotations) was described as the basic issue of this article by @USER:Tengu800 in January 2012. Since then about 50 additional quotes have been added.

I have inserted an over-quotation tag because "using too many quotes is incompatible with the encyclopedic writing style" (WP:Quote).

As a first step, I propose to remove the "Contemporary glosses" section ("Do not insert any number of quotations in a stand-alone quote section") and the quotes in note 2, 3, 11, 12, 24, 27 and 30 (but keep the refererences). JimRenge (talk) 10:13, 16 October 2014 (UTC)"

So, this discussion has been going on for almost three years already, and has simply been ignored. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:40, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the Four Noble Truths article, I don't really see a problem. While there are a lot of quotes, for so fundamental a concept novel synthesis is unnecessary. I would say if anything this is one of the better sourced articles I've seen on a core topic. You could argue with the number of primary sources, but given that the presentation of the Four Noble Truths is the same in every tradition (via the Agamas) I don't have an issue with that. Honestly it seems like something that should go through the FA or GA process if someone wants more feedback on issues of style outside of the people who have already worked on it. --Spasemunki (talk) 10:04, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Which version have you been looking at? The present, or the former? NB: I've already explained my edits extensively, in detail, at both talkpages. Nevertheless, Robert has repeatedly stated explicitly that he does not want to engage in substantial discussions on those changes. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:59, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I was looking at the most recent version- I've no objection to moving the 'Contemporary Glosses' section to Wikiquote- it seems to stray into providing instructive interpretations rather than academic context; there is also a certain amount of original synthesis going on (in the counterpoints made to Damien Keown's position, for instance). --Spasemunki (talk) 13:02, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Joshua, what I said is I don't want to be involved as an editor of the article, especially don't want to be involved in helping you to "fix" your version.

I never edited this article (except to fix one broken link using the wayback machine) and to my mind Dorje is the one with the deepest understanding of the sources of all those who edited Karma in Buddhism while you have shown several times that you are unaware of basic concepts, for instance in Talk:Karma_in_Buddhism#The_citations_in_the_Karmic_results_are_not_a_judgement_section_which_you_deleted where you first called the section you removed and the sentence summarizing it, an "incredible generalization" and then later, just added that very same sentence to your article as a summary of the deleted material. How can you claim to have a thorough understanding of Karma in Buddhism and yet not know something as basic as that Karma is not a Judgement in Buddhism until you re-read Dorje's quotations in his footnote for that section?

If this was a new article by an inexperienced editor, I don't know possibly I might be able to help you. But not as an editor of a mature article and when there are editors available with a deep and thorough understanding of the material being discussed, and in a situation where you have just deleted much of the material that I thought was of value in the previous mature article. That's why I don't want to help you by editing your version and correcting the mistakes I see in it. While I could correct some mistakes, for sure, I know it is an extremely subtle topic and I'd be sure to add more errors myself if I got involved as an editor. While the previous version had none of these many issues your new version has. So the obvious thing is to roll back to the mature article rather than try to fix the existing one. And then introduce to it whatever new material you have and improve its presentation and so on as necessary. Robert Walker (talk) 22:24, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

When copy-pasted to word, this RfC is already 58 pages long. I guess it's time to close this one finally? Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 18:04, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.