Template talk:Four stages of rebirth

neutral terms

buddha is more neutral than arahant.

--Elvenmuse (talk) 15:40, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

If you're familiar with the four stages of enlightenment, then you know the fourth stage is "arahant" and applies to all arahants, not just the Buddha; to indicate otherwise is simply misinforming readers. In addition, this template's title includes the parenthetical phrase "according to the Sutta Piṭaka," which identifies the fourth stage as "arahant," not "Buddhahood." Moreover, this template explicitly states its source as "Ñāṇamoli & Bodhi (2001), Middle-Length Discourses, pp. 41-43"; to change the text as you have is to distort what is said in this source material, yes? Thus, given the actual concept (e.g., as is even identified in the associated WP article), the identified contextualization, and the identified source material, it appears to me that changing "arahant" to "buddha" is ahistorical, misinformative and unscholarly. So, I'm reverting.

Misinformation is not "neutral." But I sense you're underlying concern might be something like: "I like this table but for folks not familiar with the Pali Canon or Buddhist history or anything resembling scholarship or Southeast Asian traditions, etc., then inserting the term 'Buddha' somewhere might be helpful." Is this accurate? If not, I would find it helpful if you provided a clear reason to support such a change. If this is essentially your concern, then I'm open to trying to address this with you; e.g., as a first attempt at a potentially mutually agreeable solution, given our diverse desires, might it be sufficient to add a footnote to the table that says something like: "A Buddha is an arahant who is fully enlightened, etc."? - 24.225.66.184 (talk) 21:18, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thought of another option you might prefer. This template is currently transcluded into three articles: Fetter (Buddhism), Four stages of enlightenment, and Rebirth (Buddhism). In the first article (for which this template was originally designed), the article clearly contextualizes this template in terms of applying to the Sutta Pitaka and refers solely to arahants (not a Buddha); thus, I think this current template's wording is wholly appropriate there. In the second article, again, references are made to arahants, and a completely consonant use of terminology exists. I think it is in the third article, on "rebirth" (which I suspect is likely the avenue by which you came across this template?), where this template's Pali canonical contextualization and wording might create some obstacles to comprehension for the general (presumably non-Buddhist?) reader. Does this make sense in your mind?

If we're in agreement on this assessment, that this template is well-suited for the first two WP articles but overly specialized for the "rebirth" article, then I think we can explore multiple other options. (If I may add, when I inserted this template into the rebirth article, I thought it might be a stretch for that article's audience and included in the Edit Summary at the time: "if this table is overkill for this article, please feel free to revert! :-)" ) For instance, one immediately viable solution is to remove this template from the rebirth article and/or replace it with a similar, more generally worded template.

Esteban, what do you think? - Larry (24.225.66.184 (talk) 13:05, 3 January 2011 (UTC))