Talk:Buddhism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please place comments in the appropriate section and keep comments short.

Misplaced material will be moved as needed to preserve page structure.

Long discussions may be moved to (or better, started as) talk sub-pages, with appropriate links. Please use the talk page while editing.

WikiProject Cleanup taskforce

This article is being improved by the Cleanup Taskforce to conform with a higher standard of article quality. It is likely to change frequently until completed. Please see its Cleanup Taskforce page for more details.

Cleanup Taskforce page – edit

Buddhism needs first of all putting in some sort of coherent arrangement. There's plenty more to be doneafter that, which you're welcome to stay & help with if you like, but that's the priority.

Added to User:J M Rice/Desk. Peter jackson (talk) 12:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC) Although buddha did need some followers.

 This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

WikiProject Buddhism (Rated B-Class)

This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Buddhism, an attempt to promote better coordination, content distribution, and cross-referencing between pages dealing with Buddhism. Please participate by editing the article Buddhism, or visit the project page for more details on the projects.

Guidelines: Chinese Manual of Style - Naming conventions Indic Manual of Style - Naming conventions Japanese Manual of Style Korean Manual of Style - Naming conventions Tibetan Proposed naming conventions

B This article has been rated as B-class on the quality scale.

Top This article has been rated as top-importance on the importance scale.

Article Grading:
The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

WikiProject Atheism     (Rated B-Class)

Buddhism is part of WikiProject Atheism, which aims to organize, expand, clean up, and guide atheism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page for more details.

B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

---

For more information and how you can help click Show →

If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page for more details.

Quick help: See changes to:

Main talk page Article layout Links to Atheism information and Wikipedia:Research resources

Writing about religion and Article development Citing sources, Verifing Sources and Original research Assume good faith and be civil

Core articles Atheism article New atheism articles

---

To Do List: edit - history - watch - purge

Join WikiProject atheism and be bold

Show off a userbox with {{userWPA}} or {{userWPA2}} and attract potential members Help with articles. See this month's adopt an article. Help out with the To-do lists

Be consistent

Use a "standard" layout for atheism related articles (see: atheism layout style, The perfect article, and Featured articles) Add Atheism navigation template on the bottom of all atheism articles; (use {{Atheism}} or see navigation template) Add Atheism info box to all atheism related talk pages (use {{Wpa}} or see info box) Add {{Category:atheism}} to the bottom of all atheism related articles, so it shows up on the list of atheism articles

Maintenance / Etc

Find/cite sources for all positions of an article (see citing sources, and atheism references). Try to expand stubs, however, some "new" articles may be neologisms, as this is common with positions on theories on life and may be suitable for deletion (see deletion process) Watch the list of atheism related articles and add to accordingly (see atheism articles) And always write for an encyclopedia.

Article to improve for the month of November

Agnosticism

Create

Notable atheist articles

Shorten / merge into others

Expand

an atheism stub

Your immediate attention

false choice into false dilemma - discuss whether you are for or against this merge here

Clarify references in Atheism, using footnotes.

WikiProject Religion

 

Religion portal

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.

??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

Version 1.0 Editorial Team     (Rated B-Class)

This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.

This article has been selected for Version 0.5 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia.

Additional information:

B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale. Feel free to make short comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

Top This article has been rated as top-Importance on the assessment scale.

This article is a vital article.

This article is one of the supplemental core articles, which every encyclopedia should have.

Buddhism is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 6, 2004.

Article milestones

Date Process Result

March 24, 2004 Featured article candidate Promoted

April 11, 2006 Featured article review Demoted

July 24, 2006 Good article nominee Not listed

Current Status: Former featured article

edit Â· history Â· watch Â· refresh To-do list for Buddhism:

Here are some tasks you can do:

Verify: source tagged statements Cleanup: standarize the references; including using templates Expand: Buddhism#Comparative Study NPOV: re-work lead to be more comprehensive

[edit] Archive of discussions

[edit] Using: Subpage and topical methods

Archives

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
Topical

Abolitionism Buddhism and Intellectualism Changes to Lead Paragraph Lead workshop Religion status Summary of changes between 2004 and 2006 Vegetarianism

[edit] Using: Permalink method

Archive 19

The talk page was 400+ KB

Welcome to the Second Rinascimiento della Umanità. Grab a comfortable position and start working!

We have a lot of work to do, but it is doable ^_^_^

Esteban Barahona (talk) 08:54, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] if

almost no one truly understands buddhism,

it may as well not exist as a religion....

bodhism FTW!

Esteban Barahona alias Samael Cero ^_^_^ (talk) 16:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Addition to "Practice" section

Hi,

I would like to propose addition of the following to the "Practice" section? Thanks!

Focusing on the present moment

The purpose of the practice of focusing on the present moment is to eliminate unnecessary suffering by paying attention to present actions instead of dwelling on thoughts of craving. When given the chance to wander, the mind tends to focus on thoughts such as "I do not have this and I want it" or "I have this and I do not want it". These thoughts are helpful if they motivate a person to change things within ethical boundaries to improve a situation to reduce mental or physical suffering. However, when dwelling on these thoughts are not helping to improve a situation, then it is better to not dwell on thoughts that cause craving and suffering. Meditation helps to achieve that by training the mind to focus on breathing and to notice that the mind tends to wander and jump to different thoughts. The practice of focusing the mind is helpful because one can then focus on thoughts that do not involve craving and thus do not lead to suffering. The practice of focusing on the present moment is to extend the practice of focusing the mind to everyday living. For example, when walking, pay attention to walking. When looking, pay attention to what one sees. When one is fully in the present moment, the mind is not dwelling on thoughts of craving that lead to suffering, so this practice helps one to enjoy and appreciate the present moment and to avoid thoughts of craving that lead to suffering.

Thanks! Raymond Rayccwong (talk) 23:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

added anapanasati. Fourth Dhyana is the "birth place" of Nirvana; it comes naturally if anapanasati is practiced skillfully/correctly.

Bodinagamin ^_^_^ (talk) 02:53, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "A Buddhist is one who..."

Can we do something else with this sentence? I'm not sure what, but between the passive voice and its seeming totally out of place both conceptually and stylistically, I think an improvement must be within reach. I, for one, don't think listing (or even mentioning) the three jewels is called for in the lead—and as the second sentence of the article, it just sort of comes out of nowhere even before Buddhism proper has been discussed in any detail at all. Maybe this notion could introduce the Practice section? /Ninly (talk) 07:26, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I've done a little work on the intro. I also am not convinced that the three jewels formula belongs in the intro, but at the very least I've cut out the parenthetical remarks. Wikilinks exist for exactly that sort of purpose. --Clay Collier (talk) 08:34, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

put the "translations" in parentheses back in. This is the introductory article on Buddhism, so every newly introduced term should be explained at first use. Wikilinks are no substitute for that as the article must be readable without jumping back and forth to other pages.Andi 3ö (talk) 05:23, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline

Back in June 2008,^[1] I offered the following diagram for inclusion in this article:

Original diagram:

At the time, PeterJ had raised a couple of questions to which I did not respond, thus leaving the matter unresolved:

(a) Should the start date of "Early Buddhism" be 450 BCE (vs. 500 BCE) [cf. User:Peter_jackson#The_historical_Buddha] ?

(b) Should the Buddhism associated with "Eastern Buddhism" be labeled simply "East Asian" (vs. "Mahayana Buddhism")?

I've been away from this article and talk page for a while, so apologize for not keeping abreast of (and for not now seeing) any discussion that might have occurred regarding the transition from the above-mentioned thread with PeterJ and this article's current timeline (under Buddhism#Schools_and_Traditions) which is:

Current diagram:

Now, looking at the current diagram, especially when contrasted with the original diagram above, I personally feel there is a loss of information, accuracy and diagramatic sophistication. For instance:

Implicit in these concerns, I personally believe (though am open to being persuaded otherwise) that the original diagram was more informative, more accurate and more visually cohesive. Would anyone have significant objections to my replacing the current diagram in the article with the original one identified above, perhaps for argument's sake incorporating PeterJ's two views that the Indian Buddhism started in 450 BCE and that "Mahayana Buddhism" should be changed to "East Asian Buddhism" (or perhaps a listing of "China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan" or "Ch'an, Tendai, Shingon, Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren," etc.). Frankly, while I did not feel strongly that this diagram should be included in this article to begin with, given that it is currently included in the article, then my inclination is for it to be as accurate and helpful as possible. With metta, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 10:22, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline height

no objections whatsoever. it was me who ended up inserting the diagram having in mind the disuccion i witnessed between you and others quite some time ago and therefor assuming the diagram had been vetted quite a bit, but UNAWARE of the changes that had been made. So imho please go ahead and insert the version you feel is most accurate while possibly taking into account the (archived) past discussions. Just one suggestion: i like the thinner bars of the newer version better, as the timeline then takes less space. Andi 3ö (talk) 02:37, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, the thinner lines are better. Perhaps this can be resolved by lopping the second word, "Buddhism," off each of the schools in the first column of the original, though I wonder if this then makes the terms "Southern," "Eastern" and "Northern" too obscure? Later today I'll make time to create a third diagram below including PeterJ's recommended changes and hopefully thinner timelines for us to play with some, as well as any other changes we all agree upon over time. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Andi - I want to apologize and explain: I had reduced the timelines' heights to something comparable in the current article by removing the "Buddhism" term from the first column identifiers; but then the height of the "East Asia" line increased with the addtion of "Shingon" and then, for visual harmony, I felt compelled to make the South Asia & North Asia timelines of approximately equal height (10 pt). Sorry for the back-and-forth and false hope. If in the discussion of "Shingon et al." below we decide to lop off "Shingon," I'll re-shrink the timelines' heights to one-line-high. Alternately, if someone more adept with HTML/wiki-markup than myself could shrink the East Asia line (with keeping the "Shingon" box to at most half the height of the line), then perhaps we can shrink all the lines. (Well, at least the inter-timeline space has shrunk ;-) ). If you feel, all things in consideration, something else could be done to shrink the timelines' heights or just want to express your dissatisfaction with this current status, please, of course, post further. Thanks again for your kind participation in this continued tweaking. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 23:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] timeline diagram: on-going sandbox

Below I've updated the diagram trying to take incorporate some of the additional ideas mentioned above. Below the diagram, I've also included a "To Do" list to track changes and concerns. Sorry for only getting this far but hope to do more in the next day or so.

Diagram's notes:

Diagram's new references:

Diagram's to-do list:

I also changed the shading of "Mahayana" and the Mahayana schools as well as of the timeline borders to attempt to increase readability. I apologize but am running late for something non-WP ... will reconnect later tonight or tomorrow. With metta, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 03:38, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History and Geography

Hi everybody. Just dropped in, great work.

A few details:

1) Tibet, Mongolia are in Central Asia, not North Asia.

2) I think it is a lot better to keep the left-most column purely geographical. "Eastern Buddhism" doesn't really mean anything, I think.

3) The split between Mahayana and the early schools was a real schism. Vajrayana sees itself as an evolution of Mahayana (or something like that) but still part of Mahayana, and Mahayana sees it pretty much the same way. No schism. Big difference.

4) I find the logical relationship between the top bar not very well indicated. There's nothing to indiate that the brown parts in the lower bars indicate that these are Mahayana schools, etc. The top bar is trying to do too many things.

Hope that is helpful! OldMonkeyPuzzle (talk) 00:09, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi OldMonkeyPuzzle -

Thanks for dropping in & for the thoughtful feedback! If I may, for me, you raise at least two significant practical matters:

What to do with the "North Asia" term? Is there a way to better identify the "East Asia" traditions as part of "Mahayana"?

For the first, I have to let that percolate. "North Asia" was really a substitute for "Northern Buddhism" which, like "Eastern Buddhism," is a relatively well-known term (e.g., see Talk:Buddhism/Archive_12#.22Eastern_Buddhism.22:_Not_Best_Subheading.3F). For the latter, I've added a "Legend," hoping this might make the intention somewhat more explicit -- although perhaps I'm just complicating things and making it all more obscure? Might be time to go back to square one?

Your continued feedback is very much appreciated (thumbs up or down!). Thanks again, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:29, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, perking over. I've changed "North Asia" to "Central Asia."

Unfortunately, I know this will still likely need more work. "Northern Buddhism" includes Tibet and Nepal while "Central Asia" includes Tibet but not Nepal; so, I'm not sure we're representing all we want to here. But, for now, I agree with you and appreciate your point: "Central Asia" is far more accurate. Thanks again, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Larry. "Northern Asia" is a geographical term almost no one uses. It basically means Siberia. Northern Buddhism just means "Mahayana Buddhism" as opposed to "Southern Buddhism" which means Theravada Buddhism. It was terminology someone came up with to avoid saying "Hinayana" (or any other term that anyone might find ofensive.) Almost no one uses Northern/Southern Buddhism anymore. Just throw it out the window is my advice.

But dividing up Buddhism geographically is very useful, I think. For one thing it just fits the facts so neatly. South East Asia follows the older scriptures, East Asia is essentially all Mahayana, and Central Asia all Vajrayana, and calling the religion of Central Asia "Tibetan Buddhism" is not too far from the facts, and I don't think any Mongols would object (at least the only Mongolian Buddhist I know anything about considered Tibet the holiest of places.) I suspect the same is also true of Bhutanese and Nepalese Buddhists, but I'm just assuming.

The general concept of the table is very viable. The geography is a kind of timeline, which is very neat and useful. First India then South East Asia, then China, then Tibet then wiped out in India.

But you maybe need a kind of third dimension, because it wasn't a linear process. They really all moved out from India seperateoly

     Early Scriptures (Nikyas)

India -> South Asia [Sri Lanka] -------> [Burma, Thailand. Cambodia, Laos]

     (Nikayas?) (Mahayana ?)

(Afghanistan and the stans in general were Buddhist until the Moghuls came, or maybe it was Tamerlane. I forget. But this was an important trade route by which Buddhism was carried.

India ----------------------------------------------> [Central Asia] Afganistan, etc. -----> East Asia [China]

          Mahayana

(Later there was more of a direct connection India ----------------------------------------------------------------------------> East Asia[China]

India ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Central [Tibet, Mongolia]

India: Buddhism eradicated

I'm absolutely sure that I've got some signifigant details wrong, but that's the general picture.

(Sorry about the messy table I'm allergic to c ode)

cya! OldMonkeyPuzzle (talk) 23:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like you're good with "Central Asia."

And I hear you about the possibility of creating a tree-like diagram. I created something like that (representing primarily India, Sri Lanka and Tibet) for a presentation I gave to a local group in August (see home-grown doc, p. 3) but, given the complexity of events and geography and space limitations in WP articles, I thought such a diagram would not be viable here. For me, in terms of my own efforts, this current timeline is meant to be a visually compact summation of such a tree diagram.

Something you touch upon and which I meant to flag earlier: I have "South Asia" for "Theravada Buddhism" -- again, a substitute for "Southern Buddhism." Based on the WP articles, "South Asia" does include Sri Lanka but does not include Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia; "Southeast Asia" is the opposite. Ideally, the geography of "Theravada Buddhism" should perhaps read "Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia," but I don't see fitting that all in here. (Similarly, perhaps "Tibetan Buddhism"'s line should be "Central Asia and Nepal.") Perhaps then this is something further for us to chew on?

Regards, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 05:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

if "Sri Lanka and SE Asia" and "Central Asia and Nepal" fit in - AND don't mess up the visual appearance - it seems they would be preferable, at least in terms of accuracy. On the other hand: explicitly naming SL and Nepal somehow gives them (undue?) extra weight (from my understanding in the case of Nepal more undue than with SL). Also: i wouldn't even know what the geographical terms like SE or S Asia exactly mean if you hadn't looked them up for us. Most readers will not immediately know them either. So maybe they should at least be wikified. Or we should insert footnotes, or an additional legend, that explicitly names the countries in small script beneeth the diagram. I fear there will not be a perfect solution. We will somehow have to find a good balance between accuracy and visual attractiveness... which in the end, we even may have already found...Andi 3ö (talk) 07:25, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Andi, good ideas! (Your constructiveness is unique & much appreciated! Thanks so much!) I've implemented each of them as follows:

changed "South Asia" to "Sri Lanka & Southeast Asia" (only caveat is newly increased timeline heights again -- does this mar the current visual appearance too much?) at this time, decided to forgo change of "Central Asia" to "Central Asia and Nepal" as Nepal's contribution to this tradition is, at least at first blush, not as seminal as Sri Lanka's was/is to Theravada wikipiped each of the geographical areas, e.g., "East Asia" to Buddhism in East Asia (only caveat: Buddhism in Central Asia does not seem to map well to our use of "Central Asia" -- should we perhaps change the term or wikipipe or both?)

Thanks again, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:06, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Larry.

"Buddhism in Central Asia" doesn't seem to map well to present day "Central Asia" for the same reason that Buddhism is an Indian religion that doesn't exist in India. The same descendants of Ghengis Khan who had converted to Islam conquered the western half of Central Asia before they conquered India, and in both places Buddhism disappeared after they got there. Afghanistan and the other stans were some of the earliest Buddhist areas. Remember those big statues the taliban blew up in the nineties?

Anyway, I don't think "Central Asian Buddhism" implies that all of Central Asia is Buddhist.

I am not the person to give anyone any advice about graphic design. Usually any input I give for such things leads to impossible complications. Forget about the whole "transmission through Afghanistan business interms of the chart, I would now say. Mahayana = India ---> East Asia is enough information.

Nepal, Bhutan and Ceylon are all in South Asia, but there is a big difference. The Buddhism of Bhutan and Nepal (Buddhists are a minority in Nepal) came south from Tibet. So they are not early Buddhism in any sense, and the fact that they are technically in South Asia is just an interesting detail. An asterisk, but not a big one.

The transmission of Buddhism to Sri Lanka on the other hand, is one of the most important events in the history of Buddhism: it was the first time Buddhism was exported from India. (I think it was actually during the reign of King Ashoka.) This fact is very central to Sri Lanka's identity, and the South East Asian countries have always recognized Sri Lanka as the source of their Buddhism.

The India/Sri Lanka + Southeast Asia works. My nerdy side wants it to be "Mainland South Asia ('India')" on the first line, but you can safely ignore that because I made it up myself. OldMonkeyPuzzle (talk) 21:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi OldMonkeyPuzzle - if I may explain, and I apologize for not doing so before, when I was thinking our use of "Central Asia" above does not map well to the WP Buddhism in Central Asia article, it was because – after a quick glance – that article does not seem to clearly identify Tibet (or the "Tibet Autonomous Region") as part of "Central Asia." Perhaps its the whole Tibet vs. TAR thing? More likely it's do to my incomplete read. Regardless, it sounds like – at least for the moment – we have unanimity here. If so, hurray!; if not, please let me know what I missed. Either way, thanks again for your valuable input! Best, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 22:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vajrayana and Tibetan Buddhism start dates

It seems very probable that Vajrayana started much earlier than its branch Tibetan Buddhism.

--Klimov (talk) 12:48, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to dig up the basis for my representing the start dates of "Vajrayana" and "Tibetan Buddhism" the way it is (my information might have been unreliable) and will put it out here later today for us to discuss further. If you have specific dates in mind I'd truly appreciate hearing them too, of course. Thanks, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, just quickly glancing at a tree-like time-line (home-grown doc, p.3) I made at the same time that I created this diagram, I noted a few events:

6^th c. CE: Tantric practices arise 7^th c. CE: Tibet expansion (military); contact with Buddhism 775-797 CE: King Trhisong Detsen. Buddhism official; missions; Padmasambhava est. Sangha

In the aforementioned tree-timeline, I don't cite the sources for these events, but at the time I was glancing through:

Gethin, Rupert (1998). The Foundations of Buddhism. Harvey, Peter (1990, 2007). An Introduction to Buddhism. Newman, Bruce (2004). A Beginner’s Guide to Tibetan Buddhism. Robinson, Richard H. & Willard L. Johnson (1970; 3rd ed. 1982). The Buddhist Religion. Warder, A.K. (1970, 2004). Indian Buddhism. Williams, Paul (1989). Mahayana Buddhism.

I'm not sure which of these might have led me to jot down the above events – perhaps my source was unreliable, perhaps my understanding was incomplete or distorted. I guess I'm wondering, Klimov, might you or anyone else here have an earlier date for the rise of Vajrayana in India, or might one use a different criteria, etc.

Regardless, it certainly would be appropriate to expect me to move the start of Vajrayana up to around 500 BCE (or, if you have an earlier citation, then earlier!), yes?

Please let me know your thoughts, e.g., would you find moving a thin portion of Vajrayana (concurrent with the "Mahayana" period in India) back to 500 BCE satisfactory? Of course, if you'd like me to precisely identify the source for the above events (which might be a useful endnote anyway), please just let me know and give me some more time. Thanks! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 06:04, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I've now extended a beginning edge of Indian "Vajrayana" into the Indian "Mahayana" segment. Does this work? Graphically, are things getting a wee too cluttered, etc.? Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

absolutely not too cluttered. just makes it look more sophisticated and the meaning of vajrayana slowly phasing in is immediately intuitively clear. Andi 3ö (talk) 00:36, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Representing Shingon and other developments

I am not well informed on this, but my understanding (and WP's presentation) of Japanese Shingon is as a separate (i.e. non-Tibetan) school of Vajrayana, so I wonder if perhaps a (smaller?) purple bar should be added to the Eastern portion of the timeline, stretching from the Heian era (first half of the 9th century, per the Shingon article's History section) to the present, accounting for it. /Ninly (talk) 01:34, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, there will probably always be some minor elements which fail to be mentioned. We might also consider adding smaller bars to represent Nepalese and Bengali Buddhism.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 01:53, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Unless anyone objects, I'll try to add Shingon soon, as Ninly's suggested.

Nat, could you please elaborate for me how you'd envision our best adding Nepalese and Bengali Buddhism? In the current diagram, might Theravada Buddhism include Buddhism in Bangladesh on the "South Asia" line? As for Buddhism in Nepal, might that fall within Tibetan Buddhism on the North Asia line. (BTW, is "North Asia" a viable phrase here??) Am I being gullible about a rhetorical comment yet again? Sorry for my denseness, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 06:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I tried adding "Shingon" with a Vajrayana-related lilac coloring in the "East Asia" timeline. Does this work? Things too crowded? Line to thick? Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 19:43, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

doesn't look too crowded to me. maybe shingon is a bit too thick in comparison to the mahayana traditions on the same line, but then again, the thickness of the lines can't realistically attempt to represent actual followership percentages...that would definitely be too much to ask for. Andi 3ö (talk) 00:31, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Andi - your graciousness and generosity are greatly appreciated.

FWIW, I again agree with you: the Shingon line is a wee too high in proportion to the rest of the "East Asia" line; I've been trying to shrink in various ways (e.g., using different HTML "height" parameters) without success. At this point, unless I figure something out technically or some HTML/wiki-markup guru can shine some light on this, I see three options: (1) leave it as it is; (2) shrink the font-size of "Shingon" (and the height of the associated thistle-colored box will shrink); (3) increase the height of the "Ch'an, Tendai, etc." box (and thus reciprocally increase the height of the India, Theravada and Tibetan timelines). Being one for inertia, I'll likely go with (1), unless you or someone else strongly argues for something else.

Thanks again for your inspiration, encouragement and guidance, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 05:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

fine with me Andi 3ö (talk) 07:27, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Andi, thanks again. FWIW, perhaps just trying it on for size a wee, in the latest batch of changes I changed "Shingon" from 7pt to 6pt and slightly increased the size of the other East Asian traditions. I think I can live with this change but I'm wondering if others (especially with different displays and/or browsers) might now find "Shingon" to be unreadable. Thanks for the continued feedback! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:56, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

i think it's fine. on one laptop (1024*768) it's a bit tiny, but you can always mouse-over it to get a bigger rendering. Wonder, if Peter has any further suggestions...he seems quite an expert on history and traditions... Andi 3ö (talk) 05:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mahayana vs. Ch'an, Tendai, etc.

PeterJ had expressed concern about having separate Indian "Mahayana" and Eastern Buddhist "Mahayana Buddhism" lines might be confusing. I can understand this. I tried to address this above by replacing "Mahayana Buddhism" with specific traditions (Ch'an, Tendai, etc.) but I'm not sure this is the correct solution. Especially when I now read the intro to the WP Mahayana Buddhism article, I'm inclined to re-insert "Mahayana Buddhism" (instead of Ch'an, etc.) on the "East Asia" line. Any thoughts? Thanks! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 06:42, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, perhaps by making "Mahayana" and "Ch'an, Tendai, etc." both the same color (see next thread) this isn't such an issue any more. In a sense, in addition to the X-axis of time and the Y-axis of geography, the colors have added a third dimension representing common traditions? Just two more cents, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 23:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

love it, love it, love it! i am simply amazed at what you accomplished in these two days. thank u so much!! That third imension (color) you introduced works beautifully. and you (+some others) put so much thought and constructive discussions into it. just look at where you started from two days ago: amazing. looks very professional now. put it in asap :), if YOU are satisfied that is; maybe you still have some tweaks up your sleeve... ;) Andi 3ö (talk) 00:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again Andi. And, of course, kudos to you for getting this all rolling by including the graphic in this article.

I do have some lingering questions, indicated above, about the geographic labels ("Central Asia"? "South Asia"??) and, as you indicated, perhaps about the "Shingon" box. Also, personally, given my long-term and deep esteem for Nat (and others), I'm inclined to give others more time to provide feedback and sage advice ... at least a few more days. Of course, if you're inclined to substitute any or all of this diagram into the article sooner, please feel free to do so (just, if I may suggest, indicate that it's evolving in terms of this talk page thread). Also, FWIW, I'm thinking of perhaps sticking this diagram out in Template:Buddhist schools timeline or something, so it could perhaps be included in other articles such as Schools of Buddhism, Timeline of Buddhism and Early Buddhism.

Thanks again, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 05:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

the honour of inserting the new diagram should of course be yours! I think it would be perfectly ok to insert the current, if preliminary version as it already is so much better than the old one. thanx again for your efforts! Andi 3ö (talk) 07:39, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Simplify color scheme as graphical complexity increases?

Originally, I used shades of similar colors (e.g., gold and yellow for "Early Buddhism" and "Theravada Buddhism," respectively) to represent related but geographically separate traditions. As this diagram becomes increasing graphically complex (e.g., with the leading edge of "Vajrayana" extended into the bulk of "Mahayana," and "Shingon" added to the East Asia line) I'm thinking it would be helpful to simplify the color scheme so that similar traditions have the *same* color. For instance:

The downside of this is that someone might infer that we are trying to indicate that these related-but-different traditions are in fact synonymous; the upside is that the color scheme will appear less chaotic. Would anyone object to such a simplification of the current color scheme? (Relatedly, is there a better color to represent Vajrayana traditions? I'm trying to use the colors of monastic's robes; thus, Vajrayana/Tibetan would be something like maroon, but this makes the associated text too hard to read; so I've chosen thistle et al. Any better alternatives?) Thanks! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've given it a try. Hmmm. Any feedback? Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 22:03, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I couldn't in good conscience keep "Early Buddhism" and "Theravada Buddhism" the same (and I write this as one with a Theravada practice) because I felt one might infer that Theravada Buddhism was thus somehow closer to "original Buddhism" (whatever that might be) which seems to me to be highly POV; so, "Early Buddhism" is gold and "Theravada Buddhism" is yellow. Ohhh, the color scheme chaos! :-( Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 23:10, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

It is the scholarly consensus that Theravada is closer to early Buddhism. Mitsube (talk) 00:13, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Ouch! All my Zen friends just lopped off my head! I'm open to persuasion, preferably consensus :-) Thanks Mitsube. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Mitsube -

Please forgive my glibness in the last message. More seriously, I think using WP:RS and Western materialist sensibilities, we could state here on WP that the Theravada canon (that is, the Pali canon or, more specifically, over all, arguably, the first four nikayas and some of the Khuddaka Nikaya) is "closer" to "early Buddhism" than the (non-agama?) Mahayana sutras (although I don't think that the Theravada post-canonical texts could support such a claim). However, there is more to each tradition than their scriptures. So, I could accept one stating that, while Theravada scriptures might be closer to early Buddhism, I think that partisans of other traditions could reasonably argue that their traditon's practices might be "closer" to early Buddhism. At least, I want to be open to this.

Moreover, of course, given my Theravada practice, if I were to claim that the Theravada tradition was closer to early Buddhism then for me this might give the appearance of being POV. So, for the above rationale and this latter sentiment, I personally am reluctant to reflect such in this diagram. If a majority of regular contributing WP editors of this page feel though that both "early Buddhism" and "Theravada" should be the same color, I would defer to group consensus.

I apologize if this causes you any consternation. I appreciate your exchange. Best, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 15:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

i think it's perfect like it is now. not the same, but quite close... Andi 3ö (talk) 00:24, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Zen is not of Indian origin. I can quote David Loy, a professor and Zen practitioner, if need be. Mitsube (talk) 04:17, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Andi, again, thanks for your kind and thoughtful appraisal!

Mitsube, mitta, practically speaking, is the current color scheme "good enough"? If not, I'd like to offer another color-scheme alternative: