[Buddha-l] Sabba Sutta

[Jayarava]

--- On Mon, 1/12/08, Dan Lusthaus <vasubandhu at earthlink.net> wrote:

>  it seems I have to make everything more than explicit


I'm surprised that you think you have made anything explicit in the first place. If I may make some observations about why you might have this kind of experience... 

You tend to swamp important points by citing too many examples without providing an appropriate context - it's difficult for me to see what's important and what is not. It's almost as if you can't decide what might minimally prove the point and cite everything you know about it just in case. This makes it very difficult to a. take in, b. assess, and c. respond to. Quite a good tactic to win arguments, but not so good if what you want to do is communicate. I'm not arguing with you, I'm trying to understand your thinking. 

You seem to assume that I (or anyone else) is as well versed in your *specialist subject* as you are - and we aren't, we can't be, and I made that clear at the beginning. I don't have the context in which to place all these names, theories, and technical terms in order to make sense of them, and you aren't providing it. You seem to assume that my casual interest might make me spend years reading the whole corpus of Yogacara literature in order to understand these posts, and that I might seek out and read your entire oeuvre and so be able to understand what you are writing. Do you think that is likely? 

You write at *great length* in a medium that does not suit it - I'm reading this on a VDU and in plain text - have mercy! I don't want to spend hours reading stuff on my computer - life is too short!

You might want to consider who your audience is, and what you might reasonably expect of them. You have certainly not sparked my interest in your subject.

Best wishes
Jayarava