Talk:Yeshe Losal

Untitled

This article needs clean-up. There are multiple issues. It looks like a contribution from a disciple. Loads of weasel crawliing and peacock strutting here. There is a factual issue concerning the age at which Yeshse Losal entered a monastery, the stated age being incompatible with that given for his brother Akong Rinpoche. The question of his tulku status need expanding and citation within the Kagyu tradition. Rinpoche (talk) 08:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I have now established that this article is a precis of the opening section 'About the Author' of a book "written" by Lama Yeshe Losal entitled Living Dharma published by Dzalendara Publishing at the Kagyu Samye Ling Tibetan Centre 2001 ISBN 0-906181-21-6.

For example the tale of being approached by an Irish lady who had been guided by a vision of Mother Mary etc. directly follows this text as does the account of his five year retreat and many other passages.

The opening paragraph includes the remark

This book based on transcripts from some of Lama Yeshe Losal's recent teaching, was compiled by a dedicated team of those students [i.e. referred to previously in the paragraph], who worked together with the common aim of sharing the wisdom and wit of their teacher with a wider audience.

I suggest such an article cannot in the circumstances possibly be neutral in tone. I have added a 'npov' template and suggest it should ultimately be marked for deletion if its deficiencies are not corrected. Rinpoche (talk) 22:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

On reflection the question of notability must arise too. I'm reluctant to tread on the toes of the Samye Ling community which is unquestionably notable. But Lama Yeshe Losal is noted as the present administarator and religious teacher ("abbot") of that centre in their article and unless adequate sources can be found documenting his further contribution to Buddhism I think it has to be conceded that he lacks notability. I can't see that Wikipedia should record every guru (by way of comparision every vicar or minister of every church). It's absurd. I have accordingly added a notability template as well.Rinpoche (talk) 13:00, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Kagyu Samye Dzong centres

I regularly volunteer at Kagyu Samye Dzong London, a Tibetan Buddhist centre affiliated to the Kagyu Samye Ling monastery in Scotland. This centre and others in Britain (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff) and overseas (Ireland, Belgium, Spain, South Africa) all consider themselves as under the direction of Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche, who visits them regularly as an invited teacher:

http://london.samye.org/london/kagyu/teachers/lama_yeshe.shtml

I'm assuming that the notability question discussed above has been dealt with since the article has been allowed to remain with no further issues being raised, but anyway in terms of documenting other contributions to Buddhism that might be credited to Lama Yeshe, there might be some merit in mentioning the existence of these centres, since they point to his role in the dissemination of the teaching of Buddhism and of meditation. MrAgs (talk) 18:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree - such additions could probably take part in a general restructuring of the article to make it more professional, which currently has a strong biographical feel... maybe a truncated life-story followed by sections of his projects?

Iskanderos (talk) 23:59, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Rename/move proposal

The title should be changed from 'Yeshe Losal' to Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche (or maybe Lama Yeshe Rinpoche for concision).

This is his accurate current name (a la http://www.samyeling.org/index/abbot), and is in conformity with Rinpoche naming conventions.

Iskanderos (talk) 00:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

In the absence of controversy I'm going to go ahead and make the move as about a week and a half has passed - if someone has any points to raise about later, wikipedia is fortunately very malleable!

Iskanderos (talk) 20:15, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Renmaing reversed

The article was moved via "cut and paste" rather than using the "move" option which messes up history and talk page. I asked an admin to clear it up and that is now fixed. Yo will see that the article is now back to Yeshe Losal as per the WP:NAMES Wikipedia style guide on using honorifics in article titles. Notice we have been here before and that is why Lama Yeshe Losal is a redirect to Yeshe Losal. This was before he was referred to as Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche. There is of course some argument to be made that he was never called Yeshe Losal (a bit like Mother Teresa for example). However we have redirects now for both pre and post honourifics so that should be ok. Billlion (talk) 10:12, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Autobiography tag

Looking at the article I seem to remember writing (or editing) most of the text, and while I have been to SL and met Lama Yeshe I am certainly not part of his organization. I am not sure why this tag is there really. Perhaps someone could flag up the non NPOV parts and we could work on them? Billlion (talk) 10:16, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Well an early comment above notes that there are quotes lifted from a book about Yeshe Losal printed by his org and says the article is a précis of its intro, sooooooo maybe we could get on that. Ogress _smash! 11:11, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, is this individual notable? Even if his organisation is notable, it doesn't mean he is. Ogress _smash! 11:13, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I am not sure our restoration by an admin worked quite as intended as I can't see the Talk history here. We had a debate about notability a few years ago. I will see if I can find it again! In any case looking for some reliable independent sources would be an idea. Here is a newspaper article confirming part of the story about Holy Island [1]. Billlion (talk) 18:14, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Hmm ... I merged all the available edits, which date back to 2006 so as far as I know the history is correct. Looking at the deleted version, I don't see anything there that isn't in the current history.  Philg88 ^♦talk 05:03, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Is there some way to see the talk page for the original Talk:Yeshe Losal? Billlion (talk) 10:35, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

It's all merged in this talk page history back to the first revision: 05:59, 25 August 2006‎  Philg88 ^♦talk 10:58, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Possibly a failure of my memory then! Billlion (talk) 15:49, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Copypaste

I'm very concerned about the potentially refactored usage of non-free material from the book introduction mentioned and even from websites like this one. The page is also weasel-y. It needs to be burnt down and rewritten with the citable basics. Ogress _smash! 22:54, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure about the copy and paste? It looks to me as if the page you refer to appears after most of the text in the article. Here is the article 10 years ago[2]

and much of the text is the same. The page you refer to is clearly much more recent from the events described. The information is however mainly from the sources listed, in particular from brief bio cited. At the time that was most of the info available. I am pretty sure that at the time it was not a copyvio (but please point to specific instances if you disagree. I had not been editing wikipedia for so long then!) It is possible that subsequent web pages may have used Wikiedia text though. I agree it needs more reliable independent biographical sources and needs a more neutral tone, but lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater('burnt down and rewritten'!), I thought even though I was inexperienced 10 years ago it was a reasonable attempt at NPOV!Billlion (talk) 21:28, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

First, this is not personal - I am not impugning you. Second, four years ago, someone wrote, "I have now established that this article is a precis of the opening section 'About the Author' of a book "written" by Lama Yeshe Losal entitled Living Dharma published by Dzalendara Publishing at the Kagyu Samye Ling Tibetan Centre 2001 ISBN 0-906181-21-6." My concern is bigger than the single page: we should look to keep the cites and facts and rewrite the page. There's no shame in rewriting a page; that's what we do constantly on Wikipedia and it's not cause for concern unless someone specifically brings you to task on an admin level. Ogress _smash! 02:05, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Well I think precis is very different from "copypaste", and precis is what I did. It was no secret that this was the main source which is why I cited it. The problem to me seems not that it was a precis but the lack of independent reliable sources. Looking at back on articles I have edited on people connected with Samye Ling including this one, Rob Nairn and Akong Rinpoche, I realise that there is a problem where most of the written biographical material is from their close associates. I made some attempt in the case of Nairn to get some independent source, from University records. Their archives had nothing although people who remembered him confirmed the basics. For Tibetan exiles there is little hope of finding any independent records for example confirming their date of birth. This isn't however just a problem for Tibetan exiles, a lot of biographies I have been editing it is clear that even when there are other published biographies the information comes only from the person it is about (eg interviews, Who's Who or Debret's)Billlion (talk) 07:05, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Further sourced info

He is a trustee of Rokpa according to charity commission [3]. ROKPA website says he is chair of it. Maybe this is more to add to a revised article?Billlion (talk) 22:39, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Source

His biography can be found in The Dance of 17 Lives, discribed under the name of "Lama Yeshe". --Rédacteur Tibet (talk) 11:44, 13 June 2017 (UTC)