Bertmayo

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Hello, Bertmayo, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!  Alai 05:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion about Thich Nhat Hanh

• Hi, Bert - thanks for your message to me on my talk page. I've moved the discussion to the talk page for TNH, though, to keep the edits and info transparent for other members of Wikipedia to evaluate. I know you feel passionately about your point of view and want to protect Thay, but I would propose to you that Thay doesn't need to be protected by us - he knows his own mind. Just take our own Order as the example - the Unified Buddhist Church (of Vietnam) refused his request for permission to start the OI, but he did it anyway because it needed to be done. Does that make our Order illegitimate? Well, for some people, that's highly scandalous and it does discount our Order in their minds. Does their opinion make the OI less important or valuable or real? Of course not!
• Same thing with this whole "Zen Master" term. What does that term even mean? I think it's just a term that Westerners like to use, myself. Thay has formal authorization to teach - that's all he needs from any Buddhist perspective, the rest (the Venerable distinction, being a Zen Master, etc.) are all church hierarchy. The very things our Order has vowed not to get wrapped up in. Just take a look at our charter[1] - we don't have any set text that we consider more true than any other Buddhist sutra, we take a vow not to be dogmatic about ideas, even Buddhist ones. It's just not something to worry about to my way of thinking.
• At any rate, I do want to point you to the OI Wiki pages - just go to: www.orderofinterbeing.org/wiki and you'll see what we've done so far. You're welcome to start an account and edit existing pages, or even help us write additional pages for the formal OI site that will be rolled out soon! I think that would be a wonderul way for you to contribute your research and the information you have to help further building the history of the OI. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on my talk page here, and if you like, we can exchange emails. Nightngle 15:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)