[Buddha-l] Sense and sensibility was: American Mahayana/British Theravada?

Richard P. Hayes rhayes at unm.edu
Tue Jan 17 13:52:02 MST 2006


On Tue, 2006-01-17 at 21:04 +0100, Joy Vriens wrote:

> I expect some people won't even know the difference between writings
> by Dignaga and Dharmakirti!

Now that is a nasty thing to say about Tibetans. Please be nice, or I'll
make you stand in the corner.

>  Inuits could probably tell you that one sort of snow isn't the other. 

Great leaping philologists, Joy! Inuit is the plural of Inuk (which
means human being). So you should call these people either Inuks (using
the English plural form) or Inuit (using the Inuktitut plural form) or
Inukken (using the Norwegian plural form). But calling them Inuits is as
barbaric as it would be to use a word such as agendas or criterias. But
don't worry. I won't report you to the Inuit Takunnarasalirijingit
(Inuit Broadcasting Corporation). 

(I would have delivered this stern linguistic reprimand in a more harsh
manner, Joy, but I always try to be polite to women.)

> BTW nice piece of humour on your website. The picture where you (?) are 
> standing in front of a closed (not even half open) door with "sage" 
> written on it. 

Yes, I like that photo. My wife and I were staying at bed and breakfast
place near Cerrillos, NM (you know that town, I'm sure). Each room had
the name of a common New Mexican form of vegetation on the door. As luck
would have it, we didn't get put into the Juniper room, the Piñon room,
the Yucca room or the Cholla room. We were assigned the Sage room. Mrs
Hayes could not resist taking a photograph of me closing the door to the
Sage room. I think she sees it as the story of my life, closing the door
on sages.

> And next to it, it reads "Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge."
> Does that mean you perhaps have too many certainties? ;-)

I'm not sure.

-- 
Richard



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