IS IT APPROPRIATE TO PIECE TOGETHER MASTER’S TEACHINGS FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF A DISCOURSE?
Caller: There are fellow Buddhist practitioners who will extract Master’s discourses or Buddhism in Plain Terms quotes that they consider timeless. When they go about doing so, they will pluck a phrase or a few words from a paragraph or the ensuing paragraphs and stitch them together to create the impression that it is one whole paragraph and tag it as ‘Master Lu’s discourse’. There are times when the essence of the teachings may somewhat be altered as a result. Is it appropriate to do so, Master?
Master Jun Hong Lu: You cannot change the words uttered by Bodhisattvas and make them into yours. Assuming I’m conducting a class today, I cannot claim the teachings of the Buddha to be mine. Similarly, you should not change my words and make them your own. There should be a clear distinction.
Caller: Sometimes, they may even stitch together sentences from different paragraphs as long as these sentences appear to be timeless quotes.
Master Jun Hong Lu: That’s fine. There is nothing wrong with it.
Caller: But they run the risk of having the messages being misinterpreted, which would not be ideal, would it?
Master Jun Hong Lu: Indeed it is considered as ‘quoting things out of context’ to a certain extent and that’s not ideal. The points I make in Buddhism in Plain Terms are specific to their context, and here you are generalising to other contexts. In this case, you are certainly at fault.
Source: Wenda20180225A 07:41, Master Jun Hong Lu’s call-in radio program
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